The QuarterBlood Princess
by moonrevel
Summary: Severus Snape returns to Hogwarts, home to his one time lover and child about whom he knows nothing. When a prophecy threaten the child, will this battling couple be able to come together to save their daughter? Can love still be found in this mess?
1. Same Old Question

_A/N:Special love and thanks go out to my beta, anogete, whose constant comma vigilance and story assistance were invaluable in preparing my first real fanfic for publication. _

Obligatory: All characters and such belong to JKR. I just like to take them out for a little drive, but I always bring them back before bed time (except for Severus; he gets to stay out a bit later. Ahem.).

"Mum, why haven't I got a daddy?" The young girl's dark eyes shone up at her with causal curiosity.

"What do you mean, darling?" Her mother turned to her with surprise.

"Well, everyone's got a mum and dad, haven't they"

"Yes, of course, but"

"Like James. Aunt Ginny is his mum, and Uncle Harry is his dad. And you have Grandma and Grandpa. Everyone else I know has got a mummy and a daddy, but I haven't." The girl looked at her mother with accusatory eyes.

"It's true, dear, everyone has got a mum and dad, but it's sort of, well, complicated for you." The mother shifted in her seat, trying to buy some time.

"What am I going to tell everyone at school this year about why I haven't got a dad? All my classmates will have dads, and they'll know that you're my mum because you're a teacher, so what am I supposed to tell them"

"The same thing I've told you for eleven years: your father is gone." The mother looked away from her daughter's intense eyes and looked with shame into her hands.

"Is my dad dead, Mummy?" The girl frowned.

"No, your father isn't dead, sweetheart, he's just sort of missing"

"Missing? Do you even know who he is?" Her voice got louder and her eyes less forgiving.

"Zoe! What would make you say such a thing?" The mother was suddenly shocked by her daughter's boldness.

"I am eleven years old, Mum. I am about to start at Hogwarts. Still, after all this time, you have never said a word about who my dad is, so I am starting to think that maybe you don't know. All I know is that everyone else has one, and I haven't"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Hermione moaned into the darkness of her room, shaking herself from the dream, a dream similar to so many she had been having for the last year. "I have got to get some Dreamless Sleep potion from Poppy," she muttered, shrugging herself into her dressing gown and going to her daughter's room.

Zoe was peacefully sleeping in her crib, getting bigger almost every day; even now, when Hermione was pretending a spoon was an airplane to get her daughter to eat, she still worried about that day when she would be forced to answer that question that had been haunting her dreams.

And what would she tell her? Of course she knew who the father was, as there was only one possible candidate. But would she ever be able to speak the words aloud? It was true: he was missing, missing to her. There had not been a word from him in almost two years, and she knew others knew where he was, but after all this time and so many unanswered owls, she refused to ask.

No one else but Hermione knew who Zoe's father was, and he didn't know that he had a daughter. No one ever asked; not even her best friends Ron, Harry, and Ginny asked, somehow sensing that the truth was too painful for Hermione. When she first started to show, her colleagues at Hogwarts, where she now taught Transfiguration, looked her over curiously, but they all knew better than to ask. Even Minerva McGonagall, Hermione's confidant in so many things, remained silent.

Hermione never felt badly about keeping the secret, save for when Zoe's older self confronted her in her dreams. Surely, Hermione would have to tell her one day, she knew, but what would she say? Sure, it had been a one night stand of sorts, but for Hermione it had been so much more than the phrase usually implied. She knew it had not been for him because if it had he would not have stayed so carefully out of contact for so long. Hermione had owled him a few times after, never mentioning the growing pregnancy, but still she had tried to express some urgency in her communications. After two months, she gave up, and all that she had left was a fatherless child and the question she would one day have to answer.

With little chance of returning to sleep, Hermione quietly turned from her daughter's room and gently pushed the door closed. She sat down at her desk to work on her lesson plans for the year. Three years ago, she had taken over the position of Transfiguration professor from Minerva who had tried and failed to balance serving as Headmistress and professor for three years after Professor Dumbledore's death. Hermione had done intensive Potions and Transfiguration training at a university in France for a year after graduating from Hogwarts, and then worked for the Ministry during the long trials that took place in the years following the war to bring all the remaining dark witches and wizards to justice. When Minerva asked her to take over the position, she didn't think twice about saying yes.

The work had been a comfort to Hermione, as it had served as an anchor to normalcy after the end of the war, which had taken place in the summer following her seventh year at Hogwarts. So many lives had been lost and so much destruction had been wrought that to return to life as she had known it for seven years in school was a comfort. Of course, the students weren't always easy to deal with, and the work was always hard, but she knew that her place was in teaching future generations to stand up for good magic, and she took it very seriously.

Still, her daughter and the girl's father haunted her dreams, and she wondered how long she could keep silent about the truth. Sometimes she wanted to scream it from the rooftops if she thought it would bring the man to her. She knew it wouldn't.

After a couple of hours of going through her notes from the past years and settling on a schedule for her first and second year classes, she was jolted from her distraction by the distinct sound of someone's head popping into her fireplace through the Floo network. It startled her briefly before she saw Minerva's head appear in the flames.

"Hermione dear? I hope I haven't disturbed you"

"Not at all, Minerva. What can I do for you"

"Would you mind coming to my office for a moment? I have something I need to discuss with you"

"Of course not, just give me a moment!" Minerva's head disappeared from the fireplace, and Hermione ran to her bedroom to fetch some casual robes to put on in place of her sleepwear. "Dobby!" she called into the room.

"Yes, Mistress Hermione?" came the voice of the house elf with a loud crack of Apparation.

"Would you mind watching Zoe for me while I go speak with the Headmistress? She'll be waking up soon, and she'll need to be fed and have her nappy changed"

"Of course! Dobby is happy to take care of baby Zoe!" Dobby meandered off to the child's room. He had been placed in charge of being a nanny of sorts for Hermione and Zoe, and took great pride in caring for the baby of the friend of the great Harry Potter, defeater of He Who Must Not Be Named.

Stepping into the fireplace with a handful of Floo powder, Hermione called, "The Headmistress' office"

"Sorry I took so long, Minerva. I had to get Dobby to look after Zoe," Hermione said as she brushed off her robes.

"Not a problem, Hermione. How are you and Zoe doing this morning?" Minerva motioned for Hermione to sit down across from the desk and poured her a cup of tea.

"Just fine. I can't believe how much she's been growing. She'll be riding a broom before you know it! Now, what can I do for you, Minerva"

"Well, I have something of a mission for you, something that must be done quite soon. As you know, Slughorn has been talking about retiring for quite some time now, and I can't keep him from leaving any longer. Thus, we are in need of a new Potions master here"

"You'd like me to look into potential candidates?" Hermione cocked an eyepow at the Headmistress, as it seemed like a task Hermione was not likely to be capable of doing.

"Ah, no, I have actually got someone in mind, but he will take a lot of convincing, and I think you are the only person up to the challenge." Minerva slid an envelope across the desk to Hermione. "I need to you to go to this address and convince him that we need him to come to Hogwarts quickly to take up the position"

Hermione stared at the envelope with shock. "I...umm...I don't know that I can be of much..." she stammered, trying to get her bearings as she looked at the name written in Minerva's neat script. "Why him, Minerva"

"Hermione, you know that I care about you, and that I have felt like something of a second mother to you, but my job as Headmistress requires me to keep the excellence of this school as my primary concern. I know this will be upsetting and difficult for you, but I have very little choice." She stared through searching eyes at the younger witch.

"I don't know what you mean, Minerva." Hermione shot a guilty look at her mentor.

"We have all respected your privacy these last couple of years, dear, and no one has wanted to pry into your personal life, but certainly you know that Zoe's presence has not escaped any of us"

Hermione let out a little laugh. "Of course, everyone loves having Zoe around"

"I have honored your silent request never to ask questions, as has the rest of the staff, but I am not blind, Hermione. Perhaps everyone else is, but I am not. I look into her eyes, and I see only one person looking back at me"

Fear passed quickly over Hermione's features. "You know? Does everyone else know"

Minerva reached over and patted Hermione's hand comfortingly. "No, I do not believe so. If they ever suspected it, they have not said anything or really thought much on it"

"I don't know what to say, Minerva, except that I am sorry"

"Sorry for what, my dear? I am not only not blind to the resemblance your daughter bears to him, but also to your feelings for him. I cannot imagine how difficult this has been for you since she was born." Minerva poured Hermione another cup of tea.

"Is all of this your way of telling me that I should tell him about Zoe"

"That is for you to decide, Hermione, though I certainly think that for all three of your sakes you should. However, right now we need a Potions professor, and I need you to go to him today, the sooner the better." As if closing the situation for discussion, Minerva went about shuffling papers on her desk.

"I will do my best, Minerva, but if I haven't even been able to get him to respond to a simple owl, I don't know how I will get him to come back here"

"You will manage, my dear, I am sure of that. If you do manage to fetch him, bring him here immediately. And, if you don't...well, just see that you do manage to convince him to come." Minerva watched as Hermione turned to the fireplace. "Oh, and Hermione"

"Yes, Minerva"

"I have known him for many years, and I would wager that it has been pride rather than a lack of feelings for you that has kept him from you. Do not let that pride come between you any more." A smile passed over the Headmistress' face.

"And what of my own pride"

"Do not let that get in the way either, my dear"

With that, Hermione smiled and Flooed back her to rooms to prepare to face the one man she never thought that she would see again. 


	2. Facing the Past

_A/N:Much love goes out to my fabulous beta, anogete, a truly patient reader if ever there was one!_

Obligatory: All characters and such belong to JKR. I just like to take them out for a little drive, but I always bring them back before bed time (except for Severus; he gets to stay out a bit later. Ahem.). 

Dressed in her best teaching robes, Hermione stood silently at the end of the Muggle street in a sad, run-down neighborhood that looked as though it hadn't seen the sun for many years. 'What has he been doing here all this time?' she wondered. No one ever really spoke of him if they knew what he had been up to, but it seemed likely that his life was as much a mystery to everyone else as it had been to her.

She steeled herself to face her task and made her way to the door, rapping on it three times with a shaking fist.

The door opened cautiously, and there he stood, wand raised threateningly, wearing dark robes, his hair disheveled, looking like a man who needed a good meal.

"Miss Granger," he said, his tone one of mocking and disgust.

She swallowed. "Professor."

"Yes?" he said impatiently.

"No, I meant me. I am no longer a child. I am Professor Granger if you insist on addressing me so formally." She was shocked at the wave of anger that had suddenly passed over her. How dare he act as though she were a child?

"Very well, then, Professor." He sneered at the word. "Now kindly tell me what in Merlin's name you are doing disturbing me so early in the morning, or what you are doing here disturbing me at all!"

"Please, Severus, let me come in." She softened her voice, almost pleading, and looked at him with sadness.

"Fine, if you must." He lowered his wand and stood aside, allowing her to enter.

With one last look at him before she moved to sit on an armchair in his sitting room, her mind was flooded with memories she had tried to forget for so long...

In the months following the war, the Ministry had worked tirelessly to round up all of the remaining Death Eaters and traitors and bring them to justice. Some, like Wormtail, had been easy to find, but others, like Bellatrix Lestrange, had managed to find ways of hiding themselves from the reach of the Aurors for quite some time.

One of the top priorities had been locating the murderer of Albus Dumbledore, Severus Snape. Every time they seemed to get close to capturing him, he had slipped through their fingers and left them just as befuddled about his whereabouts as they had been when they started, and three years after the defeat of Voldemort by Harry Potter, he was still at large. Pressure was high on everyone working the case to find him and send him to a long and unpleasant stay at Azkaban prison.

When Hermione began her work at Hogwarts, people still whispered with fear that Snape was out there somewhere, gathering the uncaught Death Eaters, like Lucius Malfoy, who had escaped from Azkaban before the final battle, to build another evil empire that would attempt to take over the wizarding world. He was a powerful wizard, and everyone believed that it was well within his capabilities to do such a thing.

It was shortly after Hermione began her first year teaching that she was called to McGonagall's office to discuss a matter of some importance. Minerva had found, carefully hidden in the Head office, a box left behind by Dumbledore before he had died. The box had proved very difficult to open, and Minerva called upon the assistance of two of her most trusted teachers, Hermione and Remus Lupin, to determine what was contained in the box.

The three worked tirelessly to open it, and finally, when its secrets were revealed, they found within it a portion of writings by Dumbledore and several Pensieve memories. They had stood looking at the contents for sometime before finally deciding to read the writings and place the memories in the Pensieve, entirely unsure of what they would find there.

They were shocked to find that the items within all related to one subject: Severus Snape. More shocking was that they revealed the truth behind Snape's work for the Order as a spy and his eventual murder of Dumbledore. The truth was that, startlingly, Snape really had been innocent and a loyal member of the Order of the Phoenix after all. He had not betrayed them.

Through the writings, they discovered that Snape had been forced into making an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy to protect Draco Malfoy and kill Dumbledore if Malfoy failed to do so, a mission given to him by Lord Voldemort himself. Dumbledore had ordered Snape to carry out this mission to save Draco and himself. Over Snape's objections, which were revealed in memories, Dumbledore had insisted that Snape carry through with the Vow that he had made to Narcissa, saying that Snape was more valuable to the work of the Order than he was.

A note, written by Dumbledore the day he died, sat at the bottom of the box. Hermione's hands had shaken as she carefully unfolded it and read it aloud:

"To whomever finds this box (and I hope that it is you, Minerva, since I daresay you will thoroughly clean out this office once you take it over): If you are reading this, then the unstoppable wheels that have been set in motion have come to their inevitable resting point, and I am dead. If all goes as planned, my death will be at the hand of Severus Snape, and all of your fears about his true allegiance have been, for you, settled, and you will believe him to be a monster. I cannot hope to convince you to forgive him for killing me, so all I can offer you is the truth about what has transpired.

"As I hope you have gathered by now after reviewing the contents of this box, Severus came to be a spy for the Order before Tom Riddle's first defeat. I cannot express the deep sorrow he felt at being partially responsible for the deaths of Lily and James Potter (the former he had loved as a young boy here at Hogwarts), and I never believed him to be anything but sincere in his desire to help our cause. His double agency has long put him in extreme danger, and the penance he felt compelled to perform has never really been completed, though I have tried to tell him that he has more than repaid his debt.

"In order to maintain his cover, he was forced to make the Vow that would lead either to my death or his. Much to his dismay, I informed him that it would have to be me that would die, and, to that end, he has pledged to fulfill both his Vow to Narcissa and his promise to me and to kill me should it become necessary, which obviously it has.

"I know I have not made it easy to access this box, but since you have managed to, I must ask you to believe that Severus is completely innocent, and if he has now fallen into some danger, you must help him, for I know he will not attempt to help himself. I only hope that all of our efforts have not been in vain, and that our world has been kept safe by my actions, and the actions of all who have worked tirelessly to preserve that which is right.

"Sincerely, Albus Dumbledore.

"P.S. Oh, and Minerva, you will find my stores of sweets beneath the floorboards next to the fireplace. Please feel free to enjoy them."

By the time Hermione had finished reading the letter, she had tears rolling down her face, and when she looked up, she saw that Remus and Minerva were also crying quiet tears. Moments passed that seemed like hours before Remus finally spoke.

"What are we going to do, Minerva?"

"Are you going to sit there like a gaping fish, or are you going to tell me what you are doing here, Professor?" Snape stood behind the sofa facing the chair in which Hermione sat as if using the sofa to keep distance between them.

"I am here on Hogwarts business, Severus. Minerva sent me." Hermione tried to avoid making eye contact with Snape, fearful that he would look into her mind and see Zoe.

"And what does that meddling old coot want from me now? Slughorn not able to brew Lupin's potion?" His face curled once again into great disgust.

"Your old Head of House is more than capable of brewing the Wolfsbane Potion, though, for your information, last year I discovered a potion to cure Remus of his lycanthropy, and he no longer requires the one he used to take." Hermione looked into her hands as if there were something there of great interest.

"Splendid. I am so pleased that you felt it necessary to come here and regale me with your accomplishments." He finally moved around and sat on the sofa, a glass of firewhisky suddenly appearing in his hand. "So, if that is all, then goodbye."

"No, that is not all, sir. Slughorn is retiring, and, with only weeks to go before the start of a new term, we are short one Potions master. Minerva sent me here to offer you the position."

Snape let out a great roar of laughter. "I wondered when someone would come here with that intention. Let me save you the trouble of begging. I am not returning to Hogwarts to teach or for any other reason. You will simply have to find someone else."

"We don't want someone else, we need you. There is no one better. Besides, from the looks of things, you spend much of your time sitting around brooding, so perhaps a job would be good for you." Hermione's anger returned, and she tried to push images of Zoe out of her mind to keep her brewing rage from giving him easy access to her thoughts.

"What business is it of yours how I spend my time?" His face contorted so as to make him look like he had just eaten a rather sour lemon.

Hermione spoke just barely above a whisper. "I think that since it is partially because of me that you have time at all, it is most certainly my business."

Completely taken off guard, Snape relaxed back into his seat and stared at her, trying to make eye contact with her, though that proved incredibly difficult, as she was very purposefully avoiding his gaze.

"You are hiding something from me." His voice was steady, though it warned of another angry outburst.

"We are not here to talk about me, Severus. I am here to bring you to Hogwarts by any means possible, and I mean to do that." She defiantly looked into his eyes, daring him to invade her thoughts, which her resolve had allowed her to hide.

"And if I refuse?"

"I said any means possible," she replied, pulling out her wand and pointing it at him. "I meant it."

"You wouldn't dare to remove me against my will." He pulled out his own wand and pointed it at her menacingly.

Hermione came to her senses and lowered her wand. "You owe this to Minerva, and you owe it to yourself. You are too good of a wizard to waste your time here feeling sorry for yourself."

Snape lowered his wand as well. "So, it is to be guilt, is it?"

"I don't see it as guilt, I see it as the truth. We saved your life, and now we need that favor repaid." Hermione stood to go. "But if you insist on being the stubborn, thankless, disagreeable git that you have always been as long as I have known you, then I suppose our assumption that you would be a man and accept our offer was faulty. Goodbye." She knew that it was a bluff, but her fury with him and his pretending that nothing had ever passed between them put truth in her words as she made for the door.

"No, wait, Herm...Professor Granger. You say that there is no one else?" He rushed to her side and grabbed her arm, making her knees weak at the touch of the father of her child.

"No, there is no one as qualified or talented as you, Professor Snape." Her previously conversational tone turned businesslike.

"And when am I to report?"

"I am to bring you and your belongings to Minerva today if I am successful." Hermione gently shook her arm from his grasp, unable to stand his touch any longer without betraying her thoughts.

"If you will wait a moment, I will prepare my belongings. Just remember, I am doing this for Minerva and Albus and not out of the goodness of my heart." He whirled around and made for his bedroom.

"And we're all thrilled," she muttered, almost to herself, but just loud enough so that he could hear her.

"Is there something you would like to say to me, Professor Granger?" he called out as he entered his room.

"Nothing I have not said before, sir." She thought of her unanswered letters and wondered if he even remembered what had happened between them anymore. He had not been left with the daily reminder that Hermione had, but surely he could not so easily wipe it from his mind...or could he?

Moments later, he reappeared in the sitting room, his belongings apparently shrunken and in his pockets.

Hermione quickly made for the door. "Apparate right outside the school gates. I am sure you do not need my assistance to do it, so I will meet you there to take you to the Headmistress." And with a crack, she Disapparated, hoping to give herself a moment alone on the grounds before he appeared beside her. She was wrong, and as she faced the gates, she could see his shadowy figure out of the corner of her eye.

"That was rather abrupt, Professor," he spat, taking long strides towards the school.


	3. Lure, Bait, Hook

A/N:I would like to send a big box of Chocolate Frogs to my dear beta, anogete.

Obligatory: I may be a little crazy, but not crazy enough to think that any of the characters or other important elements of this story belong to me. I'm just glad JKR doesn't get too mad when I borrow them.

"Severus! I knew that Hermione would convince you to come! How wonderful to see you; it has been such a long time!" Minerva jumped from her desk to embrace Snape as he stood frozen in front of her.

"It is agreeable to see you as well, Minerva." He shook himself free from her arms and sat down at her desk.

Minerva looked hesitantly at Hermione. She was still standing in the doorway, looking like she might fall over at any moment. "Won't you sit down, Hermione?"

Hermione jumped at the mention of her own name. "Umm, no thank you, Minerva," she stammered. "I'm just going to leave the two of you alone. I am sure you have a lot of catching up to do. I'll see you both at dinner."

Without waiting for any kind of response, Hermione bolted from the Headmistress' office, running through the corridors of the castle towards her rooms. She was desperate to see Zoe; she was also desperate to be alone.

Never slowing to catch her breath, Hermione yelled her password at the portrait in front of her door and stormed inside, slamming the door behind her and propping herself against it for support.

After Harry had completed his Auror training, he asked to be placed in charge of the unit of Aurors searching for Severus Snape. It had become his mission in life, after avenging the deaths of his parents, to bring Snape to justice, or perhaps accidentally kill him in his attempt to bring him in.

However, months passed, and still there seemed to be no hope of catching the traitor. He worked tirelessly, however, and eventually his sleepless nights and declining health were rewarded with tracking down Snape, who had made a gross error in judgment and returned to Dumbledore's grave, a location near the Hogwarts castle that was under constant surveillance. Many wondered why Snape would make it so easy to catch him, but they didn't think too long about their questions now that they had finally caught up with him.

His capture occurred just a month after Minerva, Hermione, and Remus had opened the box of evidence that proved Snape was innocent. They had never really known what to do with it, and though they had made inquiries into evidence the Ministry had about his crimes and his whereabouts, they were met with stonewalling and an endless bureaucracy.

More disconcerting was that Harry had been placed in charge of locating him. Hermione and Remus both feared that if Harry did find Snape, he would probably not think twice about killing him rather than turning him in. Hermione tried to coax him into controlling his anger, but it did little good. She certainly didn't dare tell him that she suspected Severus was innocent.

Luckily, when Harry did find Snape, he had been out on patrol with Tonks, a more level-headed Auror who certainly would never allow Harry to kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. As soon as news reached the castle that Snape had been taken into custody, the three Gryffindors from three different generations sprung into action, attempting to find a way to clear his name.

In her work for the Ministry before being hired at Hogwarts, Hermione had been a solicitor of sorts for the accused dark wizards. It certainly wasn't the kind of prestigious job Hermione had envisioned getting when she completed her advanced degree, but she felt a sense of urgency about making sure that all accused of following Voldemort had their rights protected. Since no one else seemed to be stepping up to the plate to do it, she knew that she must. She got just as much thanks for her efforts from the Ministry as she did from her clients who repeatedly told her that they didn't need a Mudblood to see that they had a chance at a fair trial.

Minerva and Remus convinced her to ask the Ministry to allow her to rejoin this position for only one case: the case of Severus Snape. They had laughed at her, of course, but knowing her to be an insufferable do-gooder, they humored her and gave her the task of defending the rights of possibly the second most notorious dark wizard in recent history.

When she had come to him in his holding cell at Azkaban (the cells for the as yet to be convicted were little more pleasant than those for the guilty), she was shocked to find the condition into which he had fallen in his time on the run. His robes, once so pristine, hung about him in faded rags, his hair long and filthy, and his skin ghostly pale and scarred. She wondered if she would ever know what had happened to him, and she resolved to see to it that he was released and allowed to live out his life more peacefully, hopefully to overcome his demons and see his name restored.

"What's it to be, then? Decapitation? Defenestration? Or perhaps something slower and more agonizing, Miss Granger?" he had said with little feeling in his voice the first time he saw her behind the bars of his cell.

"I am sure that I am the last person you would like to see here right now, Professor, but you need to know that I am here to help you. Please hear me out, sir." She conjured a seat for herself and pulled a roll of parchment and a quill from her bag.

"The evidence against me is clear, Miss Granger..."

"Professor."

"What?"

"It's Professor Granger, sir. I am now the Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts, and I would appreciate it if you would treat me with the respect that I have earned. However, I would prefer it if you called me Hermione."

He scratched at his scruffy chin, bored. "I will call you whatever I like. I am no longer concerned with manners and niceties."

"May I call you Severus, sir?"

"You can call me Merlin if it will make you feel any better." He reclined onto the hard floor of his cell, as he had not been provided with any kind of mattress or floor covering on which to rest.

"I am here because I believe that you are innocent, Severus. But if I am going to prove that to anyone else, I will need your help."

"If you hadn't noticed by now, Professor Granger, we do not have your concept of 'innocent until proven guilty' in the wizarding world. I will be found guilty of murder and treason through the testimony of Mister Potter; I will be put to death, and life will go on precisely as it had before I was captured." He spotted a spider crawling on the floor of his cell and smashed it with his finger.

Hermione lowered her voice considerably and leaned into the cell. "Severus, please listen to me. Minerva, Remus and I have found a box of evidence proving your innocence left behind by Professor Dumbledore. I can prove your innocence. Isn't that what you want?"

Snape shook his head with amusement before standing up and looking her in the eye. "Noble old Albus, leaving notes to his fellow insufferable Gryffindors about doing the right thing, I might have known. But what do any of you care if I am innocent? I still murdered him, and no amount of evidence from my dear former Headmaster can change that."

"You had no choice. I know that now. I am still deeply angry that he is dead, but he died so that Harry could succeed in defeating Voldemort. I do not believe that you should be convicted for doing what you had to do because you had no other choice." She began making quick notes on her parchment.

He leapt forward in his cell. "I had a choice! Do not make me sound like some kind of hero, because I have never wanted or deserved praise for heroism."

"This is going nowhere. Do you want my help, or do you want to stay locked up in here for the rest of your miserable life?" Hermione slammed her parchment onto the ground and stared intently at Snape.

"If you are determined, I know that I cannot stop you. With you, Minerva, and Lupin working together, it is difficult to believe that you will take no for an answer."

"Mistress Hermione?" Dobby's head appeared from behind the door of Zoe's room.

Hermione was startled back into the present. "Hello, Dobby. How is Zoe?"

"She has been just fine, Mistress. Dobby did just as you asked, and now she is napping." His face expressed the same joyful pride it always did when he cared for the small girl with the dark eyes.

"Thank you very much, Dobby. I'm just going to do some work before dinner if you'd like to return to your room." She absentmindedly wandered into her bedroom to put on less formal robes.

"Thank you, Mistress. Dobby will be seeing you before you leave for dinner!" And with that, he popped out of the room.

Hermione stared at herself in the mirror. Pregnancy had left her a little plumper and a bit more run down than usual, but she still possessed a casual elegance that men found irresistible. Many had approached her in her years after school, but she was always too busy or preoccupied to see anything past a simple date and some mundane conversation. Her hair had been tamed and hung in loose ringlets down her back, and all traces of childish naivete had left her face, leaving behind only a gentle seriousness and a happiness tainted only somewhat by loneliness.

However, with Severus here at the castle, only floors away from her and their baby, life was about to get a whole lot more difficult. She could hide the fact that she even had a baby for perhaps a week at best, but how long could she keep the truth from Severus that the baby was his?

"I am sure he can count," she muttered, tying her hair back from her face with a ribbon. "Unless he thinks that I am some sort of harlot, which is quite possible."

"You are not a harlot, dear, you are a beautiful woman," her mirror stated soothingly, as it often did when she disparaged herself in its general direction.

Hermione sighed. Perhaps Minerva was right, and she should tell him. She doubted that she could keep this quiet for long, and perhaps it would be better for them all if she just confessed her secret. She wondered if he would even care, and she sensed that, if the recent encounter had been any indication, he would brush the information off with ease.

As Hermione settled herself down on her sofa with a book, the woman from the portrait that guarded her door glided into view in the portrait over her fireplace. "Professor Granger, Headmistress McGonagall is here to see you."

Hermione sighed. "Yes, please let her in."

The portrait nodded before disappearing, and the door clicked open.

"Hermione, I just wanted to thank you for succeeding in bringing Severus with you. I am sure that it was not easy." Minerva sat in an armchair before the fire.

"Somehow I sense this is about more than thanking me for retrieving our less than cheerful Potions professor." Hermione was in no mood to beat around the bush.

"Well, you excused yourself rather unceremoniously earlier, and I could tell that you were upset. I take it that you did not tell him about the baby?" Minerva looked towards Zoe's room sadly.

"He was awful to me, so there was no way that I could tell him. Minerva, it was like he didn't even know me at all, like I was some bug he had just crushed with his shoe. I can't believe that he could be so cruel after..."

Minerva interrupted her. "Hermione, you must remember that Severus is largely alien to anything resembling positive emotions. He was forced to be because of his work as a double agent, and also to protect his heart from having it broken like it was by everyone in his life who was ever close to him, like his family and Lily Potter. He surely does feel something for you. I saw it during the trial. But he will never be able to express it to you unless you prove to him that it is safe to do so."

"I want so much for him to be a father to Zoe, Minerva, but he will be so angry when he finds out, won't he? He'll be angry with me for not telling him, he will call her an inconvenience, and all the while it was he who did not respond to my letters when I needed so desperately to have him here with me. How can you be so sure that he does feel something for me, and that what we shared wasn't just a fleeting moment between two people wrapped up in the happiness of victory and the despair of being lonely?"

Minerva chuckled. "You have been reading too many romance novels, I fear, Hermione. You must give him time, and you must tell him. Everyone knows that Zoe is here, and you can't keep her hidden away in her room. He is going to find out, and chances are that he will put two and two together, or rather one year and change and nine months, and figure it out. Wouldn't you rather that he hear it from you?"

Hermione ran her hand down the spine of the book in her lap. "I will have to think on it."

"I understand. I care for you and Severus very much, and I just want what is best for you." She smiled at the younger witch and made to get up. "I trust that I will be seeing you at dinner this evening?"

"Yes, of course. I may hide the truth from Severus, but I am not going to hide from him. Even if he is being unbearable." Hermione allowed herself to smile, finally feeling comforted that he had come home.


	4. The Death of Hope

A/N: More heartfelt thanks are extended to my dear beta, anogete, for her help in trying to get me to follow comma rules properly!

Obligatory: Oh, how I wish I had created these characters and such myself, but, alas, JKR did and everything belongs to her.

Though Hermione remained dressed in her casual robes for dinner, she carefully fixed her hair in a French twist and applied sparse makeup to her face in an attempt to look calm and collected. She had been standing in front of her mirror giving herself motivational speeches for an hour, her mirror responding with its approval.

Finally, the time came, and Dobby appeared to look after Zoe, who had been happily playing with a stuffed animal on the floor of the sitting room for the last half an hour as Hermione looked on, beaming with happiness at how clever her daughter was.

Slowly and cautiously, she made her way to the Great Hall to dine with the professors, most of whom had returned to prepare for the new school year. Minerva, Hermione, Lupin, Hagrid, Flitwick, and Trelawney all remained there over the summer while the others went to holiday homes, but now that everyone had returned, meals were much more lively as everyone caught everyone else up on what had been going on at school and in the wizarding world in turn. It would be a comfort to have her second encounter with Severus buffered by the presence of so many other people.

Entering the hall, she found that just about everyone had already arrived, save Snape, whom she figured had decided not to come, Trelawney, who rarely left her tower, and Sprout, who was likely tending to some ailing plant and would be along shortly.

"Hermione, would you like to sit next to me?" Remus smiled at her as she made her way to the table that had been placed in the center of the room for times when it was only the faculty present at the school.

"Of course, Remus." She sat down gently in the chair he held out for her. "I hear that Tonks is going to be shacking up with you next week." Hermione laughed as Remus blushed.

"Don't make it sound so untoward. We're to be married soon and her lease is up on her flat, so of course she is moving in with me. How is Zoe?"

"She's fine. I think I might have seen her moving something with magic the other day, but it could just be me being hopeful." Hermione took a sip of wine from her goblet.

"If she's anything like her mother, I am sure that she will be able to do amazing things before she even gets her wand. Harry was like that, as you know." Remus lowered his voice. "Minerva tells me you went to fetch Severus today. How did that go?"

Hermione felt uneasy, but she knew that Remus probably didn't know about Zoe's paternity. "Oh, dreadful of course. I think Minerva sent me because I'm the youngest, and she thought torturing me would be great fun."

"But you helped him so much during his trial. He probably wouldn't have been released without you, and he's still being dreadful?" Remus shook his head.

"I think that he is still being Severus is more like it." Hermione looked sadly into her goblet before draining it. The cup refilled once again.

"So, I suppose I shouldn't expect any wedding presents from him, then?" He laughed along with Hermione.

"No, I would tend to think that may be too much to hope for. And here he comes now." Hermione's heart leapt into her throat as she saw Snape, his robes billowing as usual behind him, enter the Great Hall.

Minerva jumped from her seat causing everyone to become silent and look at her. "Oh, Severus is here! Everyone, I would like to be the first formally to welcome Severus back to Hogwarts as our Potions professor!"

Everyone clapped politely, but Hagrid glared at Snape through his great beady eyes, still unable to forgive him for killing Dumbledore, even though he knew Snape had not had much choice.

Snape said nothing as he took his seat between Minerva and Sprout, inclining his head in greeting to everyone.

Hermione looked hopefully in his direction, but he alternated between looking silently at his plate and holding brief conversations with Minerva. Hermione tried not to feel hurt that it seemed that the two of them remained good friends while Hermione, who had once been so close to him and shared his bed, if only once, hardly warranted a simple glance or nod. She wondered if the friendship between them would tempt Minerva to break Hermione's confidence and tell Severus about Zoe.

"Well, Severus, this is it. Your trial is tomorrow. Are you ready?" Hermione finished stuffing all of her notes back into her bag and looked up at Severus through the bars of his cell. Even after months of working with him, she was still not allowed past the bars.

"I have not allowed myself to give in to hope, Hermione, though you know that I am grateful for all of your persistent help in this matter." His face softened briefly before returning to a scowl.

They had developed quite a close working relationship over the last several months (the Ministry was certainly taking their time in holding the trial, hoping to have the chance to keep him imprisoned as long as possible), and when they were not working tirelessly on gathering evidence and practicing his testimony, they had engaged in pleasant conversation. Hermione thought of him as a friend and a kindred spirit, and over the last two months she had developed an unspoken attraction to him. She hoped that they could continue to be friends after this ordeal was over.

She had seen to it that he receive adequate food and clothes, and he was looking stronger and healthier every day. Though he had never let himself believe that he would be released, Hermione refused to believe that, if there were any justice in the world that Albus had put his faith in, he would be kept locked up.

"Really, Severus, you must try to keep your spirits up." She reached through the bars and touched his hand, causing an almost imperceptible shiver in his body. Hermione wondered if it was a result of a mutual attraction or distaste for being touched.

"It has been a long time since I had any reason to keep my spirits up. That died when Albus did." He pulled his hand back slowly, gazing into her eyes.

"Albus would never have given up hope, Severus," she said quietly.

"That seems to be an annoying Gryffindor trait, if you, Minerva, Lupin, and Albus are any indication." He briefly scowled.

"Honestly, sometimes I think that you want to stay in here! Don't you want to be free again? Free to do whatever you want, pursue your work, not look over your shoulder, not be locked up in here?" Hermione was exasperated with his attitude.

"I do not know. I do not think I have ever imagined a life free of all of that." He reached through the bars for her hand and cautiously took it. "I am sorry that I cannot muster more hope for your sake, Hermione. I know how hard you have worked, even though I am sure you have had plenty to do for school. I suppose I just do not understand why you have done all of this."

She smiled and grasped his hand with both of hers. "Severus, you are a good man and a brilliant Potions master and wizard. It would be a great shame if you were to be lost after all the good that you have done. Albus believed in you, and so do I."

"If I do manage to get out of here, I swear that I will repay all that you have done for me." He looked at the small hands around his own with what Hermione thought might be longing.

"Nonsense. I am only righting a wrong that has been done to you in repayment for what you have done for all of us. You deserve to be free." She bent down and kissed his hand, blushing madly.

"Thank you, you insufferable girl." He smiled, and for the first time in a long time, Severus Snape laughed.

Hermione picked at her food, lost in her memory, one that she had been trying not to dwell on since Snape was forced back into her life. She had almost allowed herself to forget how close they had been, how well they had worked together, and how he had completely let his guard down when she was with him. 'What happened in the last two years to change our relationship to the one that we had when I was a teenager?' she wondered. Perhaps he just couldn't adjust to being free and he blamed her for it? She was at a total loss.

After they had finished eating, the professors wandered off, some in pairs to enjoy brandy or firewhisky and some more quiet conversation, and Hermione was determined to try to talk to Severus. She purposefully hung back to talk to Minerva, who had been deep in conversation with Severus as the room cleared out.

"Ah, Hermione, I was just telling Severus about some of the new protective wards we have instituted at Hogwarts to keep the students safe. Perhaps you would like to fill him in on the rest, because I am simply exhausted."

"That really will not be necessary, Minerva. I am sure that I will figure it all out in due time," Severus answered in his usual silky voice, sending chills down Hermione's spine.

"Very well, then. I trust that I will see you both at breakfast in the morning?" Minerva tried to shoot a glance at Hermione, but she was quite obviously avoiding her eyes.

"Of course, Minerva," Hermione muttered through a pretended yawn.

"I may take breakfast in my rooms, but I will likely return to the hall for lunch. I have a lot of work to do in the Potions classroom to undo whatever damage my dear Head of House has done in the last several years," he drawled with annoyance at being held up.

"Well, goodnight then Severus, Hermione." Minerva nodded at them both before quickly walking away, leaving Hermione frozen where she stood.

"Are you ill, Professor Granger?" Snape turned to look at her, standing motionless, as he prepared to return to the dungeons.

"I am fine, Severus. I only thought that perhaps we could talk for a moment about something of, well, something of some importance to me." She fidgeted nervously with her hands.

"Can this not wait, Professor? I have had quite a long and unexpected day, and I have very little interest in listening to your babbling." He glared directly into her eyes as she tried desperately to fight her mind closed through her anger.

Hermione felt tears well up in her eyes. She had decided to tell him about Zoe, hoping that maybe after he had seen how everyone at Hogwarts was happy to have him back and after he got over the shock, they could resume their friendship.

"Of course, Professor, I would not dream of bothering you with anything beneath your sphere of interest," she choked through the gathering tears that threatened to spill over. Before waiting for his next nasty reply, she pushed past him and ran for her rooms.

"Mistress Hermione? Is Mistress alright?" Dobby looked at her, his large round eyes filled with concern. "Can Dobby bring Mistress anything?"

"No," she snapped, before realizing that she should not be angry with Dobby for something that Severus had done. "I'm sorry, Dobby. I'm just not having a very good day."

"Dobby understands, Mistress. Perhaps Mistress would like some tea? Dobby would be happy to bring Mistress a cup of tea to make her feel better!"

"I think that tea would be lovely, Dobby. Thank you."

Hermione made her way back to Zoe's room and peeked in the door to see her daughter sleeping soundly. She had rarely let herself admit it, but the girl had so many features of her father. Her skin was pale like porcelain, and her eyes and hair were quite dark. She had Hermione's nose and mouth, but the rest of the features belonged to Severus. She had both of their best traits, and, before long, it would certainly be obvious to everyone.

Returning to her sitting room, Hermione settled down on her sofa where Dobby had silently laid a tea pot and cup, leaving before she had a chance to thank him. In a way, though she did her best to express her appreciation to the house-elf, she was glad to be left in peace in her current state. She had been shocked by Severus' initial behavior towards her, but their brief exchange in the Great Hall had left her completely bewildered. How dare he be so cold! Even if he could not honor the friendship they had once shared, she thought that perhaps he would at least show some gratitude for her securing his freedom.

But no, she chided herself. Why should she deserve gratitude? She had only done what was right and just. After all, the work he had done during the war had probably saved them all, and here she was, angry with him for not appreciating her more. Still, considering everything, why couldn't he treat her with more respect? What had she done wrong?

She remembered how difficult it had been to convince the special council that had been organized to try Death Eaters and Voldemort's other supporters that Severus was innocent. Though the evidence was overwhelming, many on the Wizengamot who were fiercely loyal to Albus Dumbledore were unwilling to believe that anyone honorable would have sacrificed Albus' life to save their own. Hermione's pleas had been impassioned as she practically begged them to honor Albus' faith in Severus and declare him innocent of all charges.

"His actions have likely saved all of our lives, and if it were not for Severus Snape, I wonder if we would all be sitting here today debating the decisions of the most valuable spy for our side," was her urgent testimony.

Reflecting on all that had transpired in the years since the war, Hermione fell into an uneasy sleep on her sofa.


	5. One and Only

A/N: As always, much love goes out to my dear beta, anogete, who brings order to the chaos of my comma usage.

Obligatory: I tried brewing some Polyjuice, but I just couldn't convince anyone that I am JKR. This is all for fun, and it all belongs to her.

"Oh Severus, isn't it wonderful?" Hermione gasped as she held out a bottle of butterbeer to him.

"I think that miraculous is the word that I would have chosen, Hermione, but yes, I am pleased that our efforts have not been in vain." He smiled, and then took a long, ravenous sip of his drink.

After the special council had declared Snape to be innocent, Hermione called for his immediate release and brought him to a room she had arranged for him at the Leaky Cauldron so that he could relax before making more permanent plans.

She reached out and touched his hand, smiling. "I told you that everything would work out for the best, Severus, and now you are free and you can put this whole terrible incident behind you."

"I do not know if it will be that simple, Hermione, but it is a relief to be out of Azkaban and to have an actual bed to sleep in." He looked around at the small but tidy room, noticing that Hermione had set out a new set of robes for him and brought him a pile of his most cherished books from his library at Hogwarts. He moved towards them and ran his fingers along their spines. "How did you get these?" he breathed.

"Your personal rooms were sealed and all of your belongings were left there. Remus has been using different rooms, so I just got Minerva to let me in, and I figured that these were probably your favorites. Are you pleased?" She beamed at him as he caressed his books.

"I am quite pleased." He looked about the room thoughtfully. "You have done all of this. You had no reason to feel anything for me but hatred and disgust, yet still you did all of this for me. How can I thank you?"

"It was not just me, Severus, it was Remus and Minerva as well," she reminded him quietly.

"I know, but you have been with me, coaching me, convincing the council to free me. I do not understand why you would do it." He sat down next to her on the small sofa before the fire.

"You mustn't ever think you owe us for doing what was right by you. It's true, you were awful to me at Hogwarts, but I see now that everything you have done for all of us more than makes up for your comments about my less than pleasing appearance," she smiled, but a look of embarrassment was clear on her features.

"Nonsense, I think that you are quite beautiful," he said softly, looking into her eyes. "I am sorry for the way that I behaved in your youth. I am not a pleasant man, as I am sure you have noticed, but I do not know how else to be."

"None of us would have you any other way, Severus." Before she could even think twice about what she was doing, she leaned in and kissed him chastely on his thin lips.

"What was that for?" He tried to suppress his shock.

"I'm sorry, I just got caught up in the moment." She looked away from him, wishing she could think of something better to say.

"It is a nice moment, is it not?" He leaned towards her and took her face into his hands, kissing her more passionately than she had kissed him, and she responded to his advance with eagerness.

"Oh, Severus," she moaned into his mouth.

He pulled away abruptly. "I am sorry for that, I lost myself. It has just been a long time since I have been this close to a woman who..."

"Shh," she interrupted. "Don't talk." She kissed him again, wrapping her arms around his neck as he pulled her close to him by the waist.

He pulled his face from her and rested his forehead against hers. "Hermione, I must ask you to stop. I have been alone for a long time, and if this continues, I may not be able to stop myself."

"Then why should you stop?" She pulled back from him and looked straight into his eyes, almost inviting him to enter her mind.

"Surely you would not want to be with me. You cannot possibly trust me to be an honorable man."

"Let me be the judge of that for myself. But before you say anything, let me prove my trust." She pulled her arms from about his neck, leaving him breathless at the loss of contact with her soft and inviting skin, and reached her hand into her robes, producing a wand.

He looked at it with disbelief. "My wand! But how did you..."

She pressed it into his hand. "It belongs to an innocent man. There is no reason for you not to have it."

He closed his eyes as he felt the smooth wood in his hands. "Thank you for this, Hermione. I find this difficult to admit, but I am speechless."

"I told you, there is no need to talk." She smiled and kissed him deeply once more. "I want to give myself to you, if you will have me." She unhooked her outer robes and cast them aside, revealing the Muggle clothes beneath them, a burgundy button-down shirt and a crisp black knee-length skirt.

"I cannot..." he stammered, looking over her shapely body. "How can I?"

"Because I am asking you to." Hermione stood up and held out her hand. After a moment of hesitation, he took it and stood up, swiftly gathering her in his arms, placing her on the double bed and lying down next to her.

They hardly breathed as they kissed, his hands tangled in her hair, and hers exploring the fastenings of his clothing, opening the clasp on his billowing robes to reveal the formal suit he wore beneath them. He struggled to unbutton her shirt with his shaking hands, weakness not something he was used to.

He reached for his wand after growing frustrated with his incompetent fingers. "May I?"

"Please," she said, smiling.

He waved his wand, and all of her clothes unfastened themselves and folded neatly on the sofa. He smiled as he took in the sight of her naked body and drank her alluring scent.

"My turn," she said wickedly, reaching for her wand on the nightstand, and his clothes joined hers in a neat pile.

They looked each other over with delight, and finally, he rolled on top of her, kissing her and running his hand over her breasts and stomach. "You can tell me if you want me to stop," he said, suddenly feeling unsure of himself.

She placed her hands firmly on either side of his face and stared into his eyes once more, inviting him into her mind. "If you are looking into my thoughts, like I know you want to, you will see that I have great feelings for you, Severus, and I have had them for quite some time. There isn't a dragon in Romania that could stop this tonight."

"Hermione..." he sighed, lowering himself to catch her in a long, deep kiss, his tongue gently entering her mouth to meet hers.

In the midst of the wild kiss, she tilted her hips towards him and wrapped her legs around his body in a silent invitation. All of his inhibitions were forgotten as he gently but firmly entered her body. They were so caught up in the sensations they were both feeling that he barely noticed her slight gasp of pain as he tore through her hymen, and she tried not to let on that he had just taken her virginity, fearful that this thought of her inexperience would terrify him.

He pulled away from her face and looked into her eyes as they made love, first slowly then more urgently. He knew that there was no way that he would last more than a few minutes after all his lonely time in Azkaban and on the run, but he was determined to give her pleasure, so he ground his hips in small circles to stimulate her.

It worked, because before too long, both of their bodies began to tense, and Hermione arched her back as she gave into the new sensations of her first orgasm ever. After he spilled into her, he collapsed on top of her, his breath deep but steady.

Finally, he rolled over, afraid that he might be making her own breathing difficult with his greater weight, and he pulled her back to him, smoothing down her hair and kissing her neck. She smiled with contentment, and closed her eyes, enjoying her new understanding of her body.

He glided his hand down her body, finally coming to the juncture between her legs. Running his fingers around it, he suddenly jerked his hand back and inspected it, finding traces of her blood.

Sensing his body tense up, she turned to face him. "What is it, Severus?"

"You are...you were innocent, Hermione!" A wave of anger passed over him, as much with her as himself.

"So what?" She knew she should have told him, but at the time it had seemed so right to give this to him.

"So what? Hermione, if I had known, I never would have...you should have..."

She held up her hand to stop him. "I knew exactly what I was doing, Severus. Certainly, the fact that I am an adult who has held onto innocence for so long should indicate that I would not have made this decision lightly. I don't know if anything will come of this, but I do know that I don't regret what has happened, and I never will." She touched his face, her eyes pleading for forgiveness.

"I do not know what to say." He looked away from her.

"Then don't say anything. Just get some rest. You have had a long day." She smiled, kissed him lightly on the lips, and settled herself into the bend of his shoulder.

He hesitated, but finally held onto her tightly, resigned to the fact that he could not take back what had happened, and fell into an uneasy sleep beside her.

When Hermione woke up in the morning, she was alone, and all traces of Severus, including his clothes, books, and other belongings, were gone with not even a note left behind for her. She was devastated.

Hermione was awakened from her dream of what had transpired two years ago by her own sobs and the cries of Zoe. Hermione sensed that her daughter knew that her mother was in pain, and she cried with her as they both mourned the loss of Severus. She picked up the small child and soothed her until both of their tears stopped.

The next morning, breakfast was similar to how dinner had been the night before, except a couple of the professors showed the distinct signs of having enjoyed too much firewhisky the night before. Hermione sat silently beside Remus, watching as Minerva and Severus chatted quietly. Hermione's anger ebbed inside her, knowing that the two had known each other for far longer than she had known either of them. Why should she expect that Minerva's loyalty would be to her and not him?

Still, the day before she had felt so much better knowing that she could speak with someone else about the truth of her past relationship with Severus, but now she felt that she could no longer confide in her mentor. She needed someone else to share her secret with or she felt certain that she would burst.

"Hermione, is everything alright?" Remus touched her hand and a look of concern took over his face.

"Not really, Remus, not really..." she muttered, twirling her spoon around her bowl of cereal.

"Is there anything that I can do?"

She thought for a moment and made her decision that if she could no longer speak with Minerva, she could certainly talk to Remus, knowing that there was little to no friendliness between him and Severus. "Actually, there is. Could I speak with you privately?"

"Of course, Hermione! My rooms or yours?"

"Mine, if you don't mind." She threw her napkin from her lap onto the table, giving up her vain attempts at coaxing her appetite to enjoy her meal.

"Not at all." He stood up and joined her as they walked silently towards her room. Hermione thought she felt Severus' eyes on her as she left the Great Hall without speaking to anyone, but she let the feeling pass, assuming it to be ridiculous that he had noticed her there in the first place.

As they entered her sitting room, Hermione motioned for Remus to sit down on her sofa. She stood silently for a moment, considering Zoe's room.

"What is it, Hermione? You haven't looked well since last night at dinner."

"I haven't felt well, Remus. But hold on a moment, there is something that I must show you." She went into Zoe's room and took her from Dobby, who had been entertaining her after her morning meal, and excused the house elf back to the kitchens.

She brought the girl into the sitting room and held her out to Remus.

He took the child with a smile as she batted towards his face with her small, soft hands. He laughed and looked at Hermione. "I have seen Zoe before, Hermione. Is she alright?"

Hermione allowed herself to chuckle. "No, no, it's nothing like that. Zoe is fine. First, I want to thank you for how wonderful you and everyone else here have always been towards her. None of you have ever pried or asked me much about her, except to care for her and give me a hand when I needed it."

"It's been wonderful having a child around, Hermione. I think she's been a reminder to us here of why we all fought so hard to save our world so that more witches and wizards could continue living in peace." He tickled Zoe, and Zoe responded with raspy giggles.

"Remus, tell me: why have none of you ever asked who her father is?"

He considered Hermione for a moment. "It's really none of our business, is it? If you had wanted to tell us, you would have, I would think."

"It's very difficult for me to talk about, Remus, but now I need to tell someone. I have held it in for so long, and I feel like I might just explode if I don't just say it out loud, once and for all!" She jumped up and started pacing around the room.

"I understand, Hermione, but I would never pressure you into telling me. You have kept it a secret for so long for a reason, I imagine." His curiosity was piqued, but he knew better than to try to get the information from her before she was ready.

"Look at her, Remus. Look into her eyes. Do they not remind you of someone? Someone who, until recently, has been absent from our lives?" She knelt beside him and touched her daughter's black hair.

Remus did as she instructed and looked into the girl's dark eyes. Very dark, almost black eyes. A wave of realization passed over him. "Hermione...you're not saying that Zoe, that her father is..."

"It's Severus, Remus. But he doesn't know. No one knows except Minerva, and she figured it out on her own."

"But why have you kept it from him, Hermione?" He looked down again at the happy child in his arms.

"We were only together once, Remus, and I have never been with anyone else. It was after his trial and we were celebrating..."

"You were drunk," he interrupted with a small smile.

She laughed. "No, I wish I could say that we had been, Remus, as it might make all of this easier. I loved him and I still do, and it just felt so right to be with him after all of the time and conversation we had shared. Afterwards, he was angry with me because he didn't know I had been a virgin, and in the morning he left without saying a word. I tried to write him many times, but he never responded. How could I drop this," she motioned towards Zoe, "on him if he wouldn't even send me a casual, 'Hey, how are you doing, thanks for the shag'?"

Remus stroked his chin. "And now he's here."

"And now he's here," she repeated, looking sad. "He's been just awful to me, Remus, like nothing ever happened. Not just us being together, but our friendship, all the work we did together...it's like being back in his Potions class again. He's been treating me like some bug stuck to his boot."

"So you have tried talking to him? Does he know at least that Zoe is here?"

"I did try talking to him yesterday, and after dinner I was determined to tell him, but he just brushed me off like I didn't mean a thing to him. I know I can't keep Zoe's very existence a secret from him for long, but how can I tell him that he's her father when he won't even exchange pleasantries with me?" A stray tear leaked from her eye.

Remus thought for a moment. "You still care for him, don't you?"

"I love him, Remus. I have never felt this way about anyone, but I feel like I love someone who only exists in my mind, and it isn't really him." She wiped the tears from her cheeks and swallowed any more back with determination.

They were both silent for a while as Remus considered what to say. "Hermione, I can't tell you what to do or even guess what is in your heart, but I know one thing: the longer he is here, the more likely it is that the truth is going to come out, one way or another, and I think that it's better that he hears it from you."

Hermione smiled. "That's almost exactly what Minerva said."

"She's a wise woman, that one." Remus laughed.


	6. A Great Escape

A/N: As always, I want to thank my beta, anogete, for all of her help in preparing this story for posting. No one could ask for a more fabulous beta.

Obligatory: You know the drill. None of these characters belong to me, and I am just borrowing them from JKR for fun, not galleons!

The remaining weeks before school passed uneventfully. Hermione would see Severus at meals and occasionally in the corridors of the castle, but she only exchanged pleasantries with him, pleasantries he only returned with a scowl or some dismissive or disparaging remark. She hoped every day that he would soften and try to speak with her, but he didn't, and soon all of her plans for telling him about Zoe faded away. She was left to long silently for the return of the man, her lover, whose existence she believed had become nothing but the dream that haunted her many sleepless nights.

Though she had taken Zoe out onto the school grounds and on visits to other professors, especially Remus and Tonks, numerous times, she had never run into Severus with the child. He didn't have occasion to speak with many of the other professors, and Hermione assumed that, unless Minerva had told him about her, he was blissfully unaware of her existence.

Remus had vowed not to tell Tonks about the identity of Zoe's father, and Remus and Hermione rarely spoke of it again, as Remus had noticed that the mere mention of Severus made Hermione's face turn green. He had given up all hope of convincing her to tell him the truth.

Her relationship with Minerva had been quite strained, and lately the most words they exchanged were at the regular staff meetings and a few words at dinner. Hermione would see Severus and Minerva talking at dinner and occasionally on jaunts around the grounds, and her anger at their relationship turned to resignation that though Minerva was still her mentor and superior, she could no longer be her confidant, and she avoided her as much as possible. She didn't know if Minerva had noticed her change in behavior around her, but if she was concerned about it, she didn't voice her concerns.

With one week left to go before the students would appear on the Hogwarts Express, Hermione found herself wandering around the halls, enjoying the last moments of peace before she would have to deal with finding them snogging or scheming in the hallways or Transfiguring their pets into matchboxes instead of water goblets. She wasn't even sure where her feet were taking her, but before long, she found herself running directly into a shadowy figure that had been gliding towards her from the other direction.

"Please pay more attention to where you are going, Professor Granger, or you will cause serious damage!" Severus stood before her with a look of disgust on his severe features as he brushed off his robes as though trying to remove any molecule of her that had fallen on them.

"I'm...I am very sorry, Severus. I guess I just wasn't..." she faltered, looking up at him with her eyes preparing to tear up. This was as close as she had been to him for weeks.

"It is unbecoming of a teacher, even one as evidently incompetent as yourself, to run into people in the corridors, Miss Granger. You should exercise more caution!" He narrowed his eyes at her with fury.

"Incompetent, am I?" She fumed so much inside that she was sure smoke would soon spill from her ears. "How dare you say that to me!"

"Well, I have had little evidence to the contrary," he snapped.

"You have barely spoken to me since you've been here, so how can you have any evidence of anything, much less my teaching abilities!" She felt as though she were standing before him as a child while he looked at her hexed and growing teeth, explaining that he saw no difference in her appearance.

"Being an insufferable know-it-all does not make you a qualified scholar." He smiled with smug satisfaction at wounding her.

"I should have let you rot in Azkaban! I was such a fool for thinking you deserved to see the light of day!" Before he could react to her caustic remark, she took off with a run in the other direction to her rooms.

When she got there, she whipped out her wand and began packing enough belongings for her and Zoe to stay with Ginny and Harry for the last week before school. She knew she was going unannounced, but she also knew they wouldn't mind, and she just had to get as far away from Severus as she could to preserve any dignity she had left and prepare for classes to begin.

"Dobby!" She called, and the house-elf appeared from inside Zoe's room.

"Yes, Mistress?" He smiled at her with his usual beaming expression.

"Dobby, I am going to stay with the Potters for the rest of the week. But if anyone asks, tell them that you have no idea where I have gone and that I left without a word. I will be back Sunday morning for the arrival of the students, and do not contact me unless there is some extreme emergency." She shrunk the packed bags and put them into her pocket, walking into Zoe's room and sweeping the child up into her arms.

"Yes, Mistress! Dobby will make sure Mistress' orders are followed!" He snapped his fingers and disappeared.

Not wanting to risk being seen fleeing by anyone, she went to the fireplace that had been connected to 12 Grimmauld Place by Minerva so that Zoe and James could easily be united for play dates. She threw a handful of Floo powder into it, and called out for Harry and Ginny's home, sticking her head through and yelling, "Ginny! Harry! Are either of you home?"

"Hermione! How are you?" Ginny strode into the kitchen, baby James bouncing happily on her hip.

"Hey, Gin, listen, would it be alright if Zoe and I came to stay with you until school starts? I can't bear to be cooped up in here anymore!"

"Of course, of course, come on through; it will be great to have you!" Ginny beamed and waited as Hermione and Zoe appeared in the fireplace.

"Thank you so much for taking us in, Ginny. I really had to get away from Hogwarts, plus I think that Zoe is getting bored." She looked down at Zoe who was reaching out to James with a bright smile on her little features. They had both been born around the same time, and they seemed to share some kind of connection. When they were brought together, they were inseparable.

"You know we're always happy to have you both. James has been so lonely without his best friend, haven't you been, poppet?" She kissed James' forehead as the witches took their children into the sitting room and sat them down on the floor to get reacquainted.

Hermione and Ginny settled onto the sofa and Ginny conjured a pot of tea for them and poured them each a cup.

"So how have things been going at Hogwarts? I hear the great greasy bat of the dungeons has returned." Ginny laughed as she remembered her least favorite teacher, save perhaps Dolores Umbridge.

Hermione shifted uncomfortably at the mention of Severus, but had already determined that Harry and Ginny were not the ones to discuss the situation with. "If it's possible, I think that he is more disagreeable now than he was when we were students!"

"So, I guess almost a year in Azkaban didn't do much to change his outlook on life?" Ginny blew gently on her tea before taking a sip.

"Apparently not." Hermione looked sadly into her cup. "So, where's Harry?"

"Oh, he and Ron are out on some business for the Ministry. There are still a couple of Death Eaters on the loose, and Harry won't rest until he's found them, especially the Lestranges. I think since Neville died, Harry and Ron are determined to find them." Ginny frowned, thinking of how Neville had bravely fought and died in the final battle with Voldemort.

"I take it they are enjoying being Aurors?"

"Oh, they love it. It's like them being back in school again solving mysteries, except they get paid for it!" Ginny laughed and watched the children playing on the floor. "Oh, just look at them, Hermione. I think they will make a beautiful couple one day!"

"Don't you think it's a bit early to have them betrothed, Ginny? We're not trying to preserve some pureblood line, after all." Hermione punched her friend's arm playfully and giggled.

"Oh, I know that you're right, but wouldn't it be wonderful?"

Hermione looked at her child, wondering if Ginny would feel the same way, knowing who Zoe's father was. Finally, she said, "Either way, they're sure to cause great trouble at Hogwarts in ten years, aren't they?"

"Did someone say trouble?" came a familiar voice from the front door.

"Harry! You're home early!" Ginny jumped up and ran into her husband's arms. "We have a visitor!" She motioned towards Hermione.

"I was just about to tell you the same thing," Harry said, smiling, as Ron walked in the door behind him.

At the same time, Hermione said, "I had to get away from Hogwarts," and Ron said, "I had to get away from Mum."

The four friends greeted each other with laughs and questions about work. Hermione knew that she had made the right decision in coming and that a week with her best friends was just what she needed to take her mind off of Severus and how she would face him when she returned to Hogwarts.

At dinner, Harry and Ron tried to impress the girls with stories of hunting down former Death Eaters. The girls tried to act riveted as they helped the two children, perched happily in highchairs, to eat.

"We keep getting intelligence that they're all gathered together somewhere, but every time we get close, they seem to just slip by us," Ron remarked sadly.

"What about the Malfoys? Do you think they're with the Lestranges?" Hermione asked.

"I think the whole lot of them are together. If the Ministry had put better protection on them at Azkaban, this may not have even become a problem, but now they've been out in the world for years doing Merlin knows what." Harry snorted as he took a bite of his pudding.

"Well, enough of that," Ginny interrupted, sick of always having to hear about the dangers into which her husband and brother had placed themselves. "So, Hermione, have you been seeing anyone?"

Hermione let out a great laugh. "That's funny, Ginny. You should take that act on the road."

Harry looked at her seriously. "Come on, Hermione, surely there's someone you fancy. You aren't getting any younger!"

Hermione reached across the table and slapped his arm playfully and feigned annoyance. "I'm lucky I have time to eat between school and Zoe. But we do just fine on our own, don't we, sweetheart?"

Zoe responded with a wide smile.

"Ron keeps telling me that, but I reckon he's got a crush on Tonks!" Harry grinned at Ron whose face turned a brilliant shade of Weasley red.

"Harry, be serious. Tonks is just about to marry Remus. I certainly can't fancy her." He looked down at his plate with embarrassment.

"Oh, I see, it isn't, 'No, I don't fancy her,' it's 'I can't fancy her because she's about to marry a good mate.'" Ginny laughed as Ron's face turned nearly purple.

"Can we just drop it?" Ron shot an angry glance at his sister.

"Don't let them get to you, Ron. I have to endure this every time I get together with these two. They think that just because they're blissfully in love, everyone else should be." Hermione grinned at her friends.

"Well, love agrees with us, kids. I think you lot could do with a little of it. Would it kill you two to be happy for once?" Harry looked from Hermione to Ron.

Hermione sensed what he was up to, but she didn't dare mention it. She knew that Harry and Ginny thought that she should get together with Ron, but she knew that was not going to happen. She thought of him too much like a brother to fancy him like that.

Not long after, they excused themselves to their respective rooms to put their children to bed and get some much needed sleep. Hermione was exhausted, and any bed that wasn't her nightmare-haunted one at Hogwarts was welcoming.

The next morning, however, she was shaken from her dreamless sleep (courtesy of a potion she had nicked from Poppy the week before) by a knock at her door.

"Come in," she muttered, rubbing the crust from her tired eyes.

"Sorry to bother you, Hermione," came Ginny's voice, "but you have a visitor."

Hermione grumbled to herself but just loud enough that Ginny could hear her. "Who on earth found me here?"

"It's Professor McGonagall. I told her you were sleeping, but she said it was urgent, and she's waiting downstairs." Ginny saw Zoe stirring in her crib and went to pick her up. "I'll take care of Zoe, you go and get rid of McGonagall." She smiled at Hermione as the older witch shrugged into her dressing gown. If Minerva was going to intrude on her privacy, Hermione certainly wasn't going to make an effort to appear presentable.

Hermione made her way down the stairs slowly to the sitting room and found Minerva sitting there, drinking a cup of tea.

"Ah, Hermione, there you are! I'm sorry to disturb you." Minerva went to stand, but Hermione held up her hand to stop her.

"Please, don't get up," Hermione muttered, trying to resist the urge to scream her out of the house. "How did you know I was here?"

"There were very few places you could be, so I just guessed, and I was right. Why did you leave in such a hurry? We were all worried about you!" Minerva looked at her with genuine concern.

"I am a grown witch and can take care of myself. There was no need to worry." Hermione poured herself a cup of tea from the pot Ginny had laid out on the table.

Minerva looked slightly taken aback by Hermione's coldness. "That isn't the only reason I came," she admitted sheepishly.

"I thought not. Just say what you came to say so we don't have to beat around the bush all morning." Hermione avoided Minerva's eyes.

"I heard about your conversation with Severus right before you left," Minerva stated steadily.

"I see he has no problem being civil with you, at least. That confirms that his disgust with humanity is confined only to me," Hermione spat back, but suddenly curious about what Severus had told Minerva about their encounter.

"What you said greatly hurt him, Hermione." Minerva's tone made Hermione feel as though she were being scolded.

"I take it he neglected to mention why I said that to him!" The peace Hermione had felt since arriving at her friends' home dissipated and left her once again with her anger.

Minerva hesitated. "Well, no, he didn't exactly say what else the conversation consisted of." She looked guiltily at Hermione. "What did he say to you, dear?"

Hermione shook her head. "It doesn't really matter now. Suffice it to say that it was enough when combined with his treatment of me since he's been back at Hogwarts to keep me from wanting to be civil with him." She took a casual sip of her tea, as if the fact that the love of her life and father of her child hated her was as interesting a topic as the weather.

"I take it you think that I have told him about Zoe," Minerva said after a few silent moments.

Hermione looked up with surprise. "Have you?"

"No, I haven't. I love and respect you, Hermione, and though I have known Severus far longer than I have known you, I would never betray your trust like that. I hope you can believe me." She gazed at Hermione, trying to figure out what she was feeling.

Hermione began to feel guilty that she had supposed Minerva would betray her confidence, but still she felt that with the closeness of her with Severus, she could not be as friendly with Minerva as she had been before.

"This has been a great deal more difficult for me than I thought it would be, Minerva. I was all ready to tell him, to beg him for forgiveness, to try to work things out with him, but now..." she trailed off as a tear formed in her eye. "Now I know that isn't possible. He is completely indifferent to me, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I wouldn't burden him with a child if he has no feelings for me."

"I had no idea about his behavior, Hermione, and I have no explanation for it, as he has been very kind to me and just about everyone else. Well, as kind as he can be, I should say. Perhaps if you told him how you feel..."

Hermione stopped her. "He knew how I felt the morning he walked out on me. It didn't mean anything to him then, so it certainly won't mean anything to him now."

"But Zoe!" Minerva was insistent.

"Zoe has been just fine for a year without him," Hermione retorted quietly, returning to her tea cup.

"And what about you? Have you been fine?" Minerva reached out and touched Hermione's hand.

"I will be. Now, I hate to be rude, but I came here to get away from all of this, and I just need some peace before the term starts. I must ask you to leave." Hermione stood up and walked towards the front door.

Resigned that Hermione had no interest in discussing the matter further, she slowly got up to leave. "I just wish you had someone to talk to if you don't feel you can talk to me, which I hope you know you can in complete confidence."

"I have told Remus, and I have him to talk to." Hermione fixed her gaze on the ground.

"Good. Well, I suppose I will be seeing you Sunday?" Minerva looked at her hopefully.

"I would not neglect my duties as a teacher over a personal matter, Minerva. Surely you know me better than that?" She looked up at her mentor with a touch of sadness.

"Of course I do, Hermione. Be well." With that, Minerva turned to the door and Disapparated away.

"Bloody hell, who was that here so early?" Ron came ambling down the stairs, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Hermione laughed as they sat together on the sofa. "It was just Minerva. She had to discuss some Hogwarts business with me; the fun never stops for a professor."

"You know, Hermione, I was thinking about what Harry and Ginny said last night. They've been trying to set us up for years, you know." He blushed furiously.

"Oh, I know they have been, Ron. But, come on, you're like a brother to me. I haven't really got feelings like that for you. It would just be too strange..." She trailed off, her thoughts still locked on her conversation with Minerva.

"I know, but you know that I love Zoe, and that I would be good to you both. Would it kill us to just give it a try?" Without much preamble, he leaned in to give her an awkward kiss.

They both pulled away and started laughing hysterically.

"Alright, I suppose you're right. Hey, it was worth a shot!" He continued to laugh as Hermione put her arm around him, grateful to have such wonderful friends to support her, even if they didn't know what they were supporting her through.


	7. The Next Prophecy

A/N:As usual, my most heartfelt thanks go out to my beta, anogete, who helped me whip this story into tip top shape!

Obligatory: Everything belongs to JKR. I just like to play around in the world she so artfully created!

On Sunday, Hermione returned to Hogwarts, luggage and baby in tow, prepared to face her students, even if she wasn't sure that she could face Severus.

She arrived shortly before the students were scheduled to get off the train, and she rushed to her rooms to put Zoe under Dobby's watchful eye, get into her best teaching robes, and run at full speed to the Great Hall.

When she got there, she saw that the students had yet to make their way in. She was the last professor to take her seat save Flitwick who, in his duties as Deputy Headmaster, was waiting to greet the first years and bring them in to be sorted, and Trelawney, whose attendance at any meal was always unpredictable.

As she strode around the table to her seat, Severus, who was seated next to Minerva, growled at her, "Nice of you to join us, Miss Granger."

Hermione didn't respond or look at him as she settled into her seat.

"Are you feeling better since taking a break?" Remus asked, careful not to say too much as his bride to be was sitting next to him, listening to his every word.

"Much better, thank you. Hello, Tonks!" She smiled at the witch, who had made her hair a more somber black for the occasion.

"Wotcher, Hermione. How did my two favorite Aurors treat you? I heard Ron was staying with Harry for the week." She beamed at Remus between glances at Hermione.

"Oh, they were fine. They nearly burned the house down trying to help Ginny and me out with dinner, but other than that, it was great. I think now I'm ready to face these dunderheads." She smiled and cast a discreet glance at Severus, who was scowling at his plate as usual.

"And speaking of them, here they come!" Remus whispered, looking up as the older students filed into the room, freshly dressed in their school robes. After they had settled themselves, the doors opened again, and Flitwick led in the terrified first years.

Hermione remembered when she had walked into the Great Hall for the first time before her sorting, and she thought of how scared she had been. Looking around at her fellow teachers, she saw the same glaze of memory in their eyes that she felt in hers. Had it been better to be a young, innocent child, or was life better now that her naivete had been cast aside?

She cheered for the students as they were sorted into the houses, clapping the hardest for the new Gryffindors. After all the students were finally in their seats, Minerva stood up to give her address before the feast appeared on the tables.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Hogwarts! Before we begin the feast, I have a few start of term notices for you..." Minerva trailed off as everyone's eyes had turned to the door that had just burst open, revealing Professor Trelawney, the Divination professor, staggering in and looking around wildly.

Everyone watched her in stunned silence as she stumbled towards the head table, and her eyes were clouded like she was in some sort of trance, a more airy, ridiculous trance than she usually looked like she was in.

"Sybill!" Minerva looked up at her with shock, knowing that something was wrong. She was too frozen to do anything more but stare.

Suddenly, Trelawney spoke, her voice deep and terrifying: "The child with the power to unite two worlds has come! Born of rival houses, torn apart by war under the sign of the crab, her strength will be greater than all before her. Her existence must be acknowledged by two to keep the peace of all. Descendant of Muggles and wizards alike, the child with the power to unite two worlds has been at Hogwarts!"

In the middle of the bewilderment of the entire hall, Trelawney collapsed on the floor. Instantly, the crowd broke into murmurs as the students questioned each other about their parentage, trying to figure out if any of them were the one of whom their Divination professor spoke.

Minerva, Severus, Flitwick, and Poppy rushed forward to carry Trelawney off to the hospital wing. In an effort to distract the students from the spectacle, Remus stood and waved his wand, causing the feast to appear on the tables. From the corner of his eye, he could see Hermione struggling to stand but eventually passing out in her chair.

"Hermione!" Remus ran to her, and, trying to be discreet, implored to the remaining professors to look after the students as he picked her up and rushed her to her rooms.

Warding her door behind him, Remus set Hermione down on her couch. "Wake up, Hermione." She didn't respond. "You can quit pretending, Hermione, we're out of the Great Hall." He smiled and waved his wand over her.

Suddenly, Hermione's eyes snapped open, and she sat up with a start. "Remus! The baby!"

"Hermione, relax, Zoe is fine! What's wrong with you? You went out cold. I mean, I know Sybill can have that effect in class..."

"No!" She interrupted him. "I know neither of us puts much stock in prophecies, but the last two she made like that were right, weren't they?"

He looked toward Zoe's room. "You don't think..."

"She's a Cancer, the sign of the crab, she was born of Gryffindor and Slytherin, she has one half-blood and one Muggle-born parent, and she has yet to be acknowledged by one of her two parents. And she can already do magic, Remus! Who else could it possibly be?" She paced around her room.

"You make it sound like it's a horrible thing, Hermione. If it is Zoe, and we don't know that for certain, you heard what she said! She has great power, enough to bring peace to all and unite our world and the Muggle world. It's not a death sentence, it's a great thing!"

"But she should be able to be a kid and be a normal person! Don't you know how horrible it was for Harry to have the pressure on him of being the Chosen One? How much he hated all of the attention he got for it? I don't want to put my daughter through that!" She was exasperated, pacing back and forth in front of Zoe's room, looking at all the doors in her room as though waiting for someone to burst in and take her.

"But if it's true, then you don't have a choice, Hermione," Remus pressed quietly.

Hermione let out a great maniacal laugh. "Voldemort had a choice when he went after Harry. He marked him as his equal, giving him the power to defeat him. Well, I've learned a lesson from that. If Zoe can't become this Chosen One Part Two if Severus doesn't acknowledge her, then he's just never going to find out!"

Remus was stunned by the wild look in Hermione's eyes. "What are you saying, Hermione?"

"I am saying that no one, save you and Minerva, will know who her father is. If Severus never finds out that Zoe is his daughter and can never acknowledge her, then her life can be normal. People will guess about who the prophecy is about, but if they don't know that Zoe is Severus' child, then he can never figure out that Sybill was referring to Zoe." Before Remus could interrupt her, there was a sharp knock at the door. Hermione waved her wand toward it and it opened, revealing Minerva standing there, shaking. "Yes, Minerva?"

"Hermione! Remus! We were looking everywhere for you!" She motioned behind her to Severus, who glowered into the room.

"What is he doing here?" Hermione spat, pointing to Severus.

"We were just looking for you. The students are in an uproar and the Gryffindors need their Head of House, Remus." She waved her finger at him.

"Then Severus and I can go and take everyone back to their common rooms." He moved to the door, trying to send a silent message to Minerva to stay there with Hermione and talk some sense into her.

"I wouldn't want to interrupt the two of you, Lupin," Severus intoned darkly, looking suspiciously between Remus and Hermione.

"Yes, that's enough, Severus. Go on, both of you." Minerva shooed them out of the door and, closing it, turned to Hermione. "Are you alright? Tonks said you fainted after we left the hall."

"I'm fine, Minerva, but thank you for your concern." Hermione resumed her pacing, annoyance evident in her voice.

"I know why you are upset, Hermione." Minerva moved towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to put a stop to her pacing.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Hermione tried to settle herself down by sitting in the armchair in front of her fire.

"Listen, you know that you and I feel the same way about Divination, but this is something different. I also know that you must have made the connection that I did between the person she described and Zoe." Minerva's face softened and she sat across from Hermione on the sofa. "It is nothing to fear if it is true, Hermione."

"Remus has already given me a similar speech, Minerva, and I will tell you what I told him. I want Zoe to have a normal life and not be burdened by the pressure Harry always had on him. If Zoe is the child in the prophecy, I will do everything in my power to see that it never comes true through her." She looked intently at the older witch. "If the only way to do that is to see that Severus never knows that she is his, then that is what I am going to do."

"But he has a right to know, and if him knowing can bring peace to Muggles and wizards alike, then certainly it's worth the risk!" Minerva reached out and grabbed Hermione's hands. "What are you so afraid of?"

"Minerva, she is my child, and neither you, nor Remus, nor Severus, nor Merlin himself will change my mind about this. I am going to make sure that she is safe and normal and not some target for ridicule and fame." She pulled her hands from Minerva, trying to signal that the matter was closed for discussion.

"You are right, she is your child, and it is your decision to make as much before we learned this as it is now. However, we are going to hold a staff meeting once the students are back in their houses to discuss what to do. What shall I tell the other teachers?"

"That you don't think we should make a big fuss over this and try to root out who the prophecy was about, and that's the end of the discussion!" Hermione pressed her hands to her eyes.

"I hope you have thought about this thoroughly, Hermione. You know that I don't approve of you keeping this from Severus," she remarked cautiously.

"Minerva, I don't know what he has said to you about me, but I can tell you from my limited and unpleasant interactions with him thus far that he feels absolutely nothing but disgust for me. I do not want him to be a father to our child if that is how he feels. And even if that isn't how he feels, the way he has behaved towards me has been inexcusable." She got up and straightened out her robes, ignoring the sad look on Minerva's face. "To the staff meeting, then?"

They walked silently to the staff room where the other professors were slowly filing in. The last to arrive were the four Heads of House, Sprout, Flitwick, Severus, and Remus. Trelawney was conspicuously absent. When they all took their seats, Minerva opened the meeting.

"I am sure that you are all just as shocked by what has happened tonight as I am, but I think that we need not be alarmed. After all, just yesterday Sybill told me that the Hogwarts Express would explode en route to the castle, and as you have all seen, the students have arrived in one piece."

"But this isn't like her normal predictions, Minerva, this was different. It felt almost like she was actually having a legitimate vision." Flitwick tried to keep from laughing.

"Perhaps our other Divination professor could give us some insight," suggested Severus, his voice dark and almost taunting as he looked at Firenze.

Firenze was calm but firm in his reply. "My kind do not put great stock in the faulty human practice of Divination, but we have foreseen another great change in the stars and signs of unity and peace. It may be possible that there is some truth in her ramblings."

"We have quite a few girls here, though, Minerva, many of them with the kind of parents she described. How would we ever figure out who it is?" Sprout looked bewildered.

Severus cleared his throat. "Not that I am one to believe in such foolish things, but I think we can narrow down the field considerably to those students whose birthdays fall under the sign of Cancer and have only one Slytherin parent."

"Why Slytherin?" Hagrid glared at Severus, still unable to control his dislike.

"Of course all of the houses are rivals, but no other house has been torn from the others by the war than Slytherin, considering the history of their families and how many had relatives in the Dark Lord's camp," he stated very matter-of-factly.

"Are we really going to try to figure out who this child is? Of what importance is it to us right now?" Remus shot a glance at Hermione.

"Well, she could bring lasting peace to our world and the Muggle world, couldn't she? Isn't it worth the effort?" Sprout looked back and forth between Remus and Minerva who were now looking at each other.

"If it is true, which I still do not believe, then it will be revealed in due course whether we attempt to discover who it is or not." Severus looked around, bored.

Minerva stood once again. "I agree with Severus. If there is any truth in Sybill's prediction, then the identity of this girl will be revealed whether we seek it out or not. I do not wish to distract our students from their studies with any kind of proverbial witch hunt."

"I think that very wise, Minerva. After all, Merlin knows they have enough to distract them already as it is!" Madame Hooch shook her head in thought.

"Then that's settled. I suggest you all insist that your students keep their noses in their books and out of trying to determine who this chosen one is. If we can't figure it out, certainly they won't be able to. Dismissed." Minerva waved her hands toward the door, and everyone got up silently and made to return to their rooms.

Poppy pulled Hermione aside. "Hermione, isn't Zoe a Cancer?" she asked quietly.

"Who is Zoe?" Severus appeared behind them as if out of nowhere.

"No one, Severus. Just someone I know." She shot a pleading look at the bewildered healer and returned to her rooms with a flourish of her burgundy robes.

Slamming her door shut, she told the portrait that no one, even if it were Dumbledore raised from the dead, was to enter her room for the rest of the evening. Happy that she could finally go back to sleep, the picture eagerly assented to her demands.

"Dobby?" she called out, waiting for the house-elf to appear.

"Yes, Mistress? Dobby is here!"

"Have you been here all this time, Dobby?" She looked at him sternly.

"No, Mistress, Dobby was in the kitchens until now preparing the feast and cleaning up with the other house-elves. But don't worry, Mistress, Dobby charmed the room to summon Dobby if there was a problem with little Zoe!"

"I know you take good care of her, Dobby. I wanted to ask you a favor." She sat down and motioned to Dobby to sit with her.

"Anything Mistress needs, Dobby will do!" He looked up at her eagerly.

"Dobby, next weekend is the wedding for Remus and Tonks, and Zoe and I are going. I need you to come along with us and watch Zoe for me. Can you do that?"

"Of course, Mistress! That is an easy task for Dobby, and Dobby loves watching baby Zoe! Dobby thought it was going to be much more complicated than that!"

Hermione took a deep breath. "It is a bit more complicated than that, Dobby, but not too much more. Do you know Professor Snape?"

Dobby wrinkled up his big nose with disgust. "Dobby knows it is wrong to say, Mistress, but Dobby does not like that man!"

Hermione laughed. "No, I think that it is quite alright to say it, Dobby. Well, anyway, he will be there, and I need you to keep Zoe as far away from him as possible. Do whatever you must to see that he does not see her. Make her invisible, Disapparate away with her, anything, just keep her away from him. Do you understand?"

"Oh, yes, Mistress, Dobby understands! If keeping baby Zoe away from that bad man keeps Dobby away from him, Dobby will do it gladly!" He got up from his seat.

"Thank you, Dobby. Now go and get some rest." Hermione rubbed her own tired eyes as Dobby nodded with a smile and disappeared from her room.

"How am I going to do this?" she asked the room before going to a fitful sleep full of dreams of the night with Severus that had brought the alleged prophecy into being.


	8. Great Bat of the Dungeons

A/N:As usual, great thanks go out to my amazing beta, anogete, whose time and patience with me have made this story possible!

Obligatory: Everything belongs to JKR, of course. I'm just having a bit of fun with her world!

Hermione carefully groomed herself for her first day of classes. In her first two years of teaching, the first day of school was always one of anxiety for her, fearing that she would make a fool out of herself in front of her class. She never did, and, eventually, her worries dissipated. She had become a far more calm and confident instructor.

At breakfast, the hall was filled with the usual chatter about what everyone had been up to over the summer. Hermione noticed that, even though she had enjoyed the silence of the castle, it was comforting to her to see all of the students returning to a world that was free of the fear she had endured when she was a student there.

"Ready for classes, Hermione?" Tonks appeared beside her with Remus.

"As ready as I can be, Tonks. Hey, don't you have to be at work keeping Harry and Ron out of trouble?" Hermione smiled at the now pink-haired witch.

"I have time to eat with my soon to be husband before I have to face that lot!" Tonks laughed and kissed Remus on the cheek.

"Are you ready for the wedding, Remus?" Hermione watched her friend go pale at the mention of the word.

"I am ready to be married to Tonks after all these years..."

"Yeah, it certainly took you long enough to ask me!" Tonks punched Remus playfully on the arm.

"Yes, as I was saying, I am more than ready to be married to Tonks after all of these years, but I am a little terrified about what may happen at the wedding. Why can't it just be a simple affair with a couple of our friends?" He knew that he had lost the battle for a small wedding long ago. Everyone had convinced them that, since there hadn't been a big wedding in the Order since Harry and Ginny's, they should do something special.

"Well, I think it's going to be lovely." Hermione took a small bite of her toast.

"Are you bringing a date, Hermione?" Tonks looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes.

"I am, in fact. I am bringing two, actually!" She laughed at the surprise on Tonks' face. "My dates will be Zoe and Dobby."

"Well, that isn't any fun, is it?" Tonks shoved a last large forkful of food into her mouth, nearly knocking over her tea cup as she prepared to leave. "Well, I've got to be off. Harry reckons he's got a lead on Draco Malfoy, but I think it's a load of rubbish. See you later, then, love?"

Remus got up to kiss his fiancée. "I'll be waiting, my dear."

"Bye, Hermione!" Tonks chirped brightly as she ran out of the Great Hall.

"She just wants you to be happy, Hermione. I hope that it doesn't offend you," Remus said, patting her hand.

"Oh, no, I'm not offended. It's just that I have been getting that a lot lately." She looked down the table at Severus.

"If your heart is set on someone, then you should go for it, Hermione. It's no good making yourself miserable by not at least trying."

"It's just not possible, Remus. I wish it were, but it isn't. And as long as I can't have him, there is no one who can make me happy." She looked thoughtfully at the remaining breakfast on her plate. "Well, I've got to get off to my classroom. I start with a first year class of Gryffindors and Slytherins, so I need time to get my game face on!"

Remus laughed. "Yes, I have a fifth year class with the same combination first. What a way to start the day, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, it's my favorite way to start the day." She smiled. "Good luck, then!"

She found the corridors nearly empty as she made her way to her classroom, as everyone was still busy with breakfast. It was another half an hour before her students finally began filling into her room, looking apprehensive about their first Hogwarts class ever.

Looking over at a table of Gryffindors, she noticed one girl trying to hide tears as she looked down at the floor beneath her desk. Hermione quietly walked towards her and leaned down in front of her seat.

"Is something wrong, Eloise?" She had memorized all of the first years' names the previous night at the sorting.

The small blonde girl sniffed. "No, nothing is wrong, Professor."

"Come now, I know I am your professor but I am also a fellow Gryffindor! If something is wrong, you can tell me." She spoke soothingly to the girl with the same voice she used with Zoe when she was crying.

"It's nothing, Professor. Well, when I was walking here from the Great Hall, an older Slytherin boy charmed my shoelaces to tie together, and I fell over. P-Professor Snape came up behind me and took points from Gryffindor for me being clumsy! Ten points because some Slytherin tied my shoelaces together!" She wiped tears from her eyes.

"Well then, ten points to Gryffindor for being honest with a teacher on the first day of classes." Hermione smiled at the girl as she looked up at her gratefully. "Don't worry, Eloise. You'll get used to Professor Snape. Don't take it personally; it's just the way he is. Since the Sorting Hat put you in Gryffindor, I know you have the courage to put up with it."

"Thank you, Professor." Eloise dried her tears and finally smiled.

"You are most welcome, Eloise." Hermione stood up. "Now, welcome, everyone, to your first Transfiguration class. Let us define Transfiguration..."

The rest of the day brought her more stories of Severus taking points from Gryffindor for ridiculous reasons. One third year Gryffindor boy told her how he had taken points from him for sneezing in his class, and, in the hallway, a sixth year girl Hermione had always liked told her fellow Gryffindor that Severus had docked thirty points from Gryffindor for talking too loud at lunch, though the girl had barely been speaking over a whisper.

After about the tenth such story, Hermione was furious and marched to the hourglasses that kept track of the house points. Gryffindor was in the negative range by one hundred and fifty points, while Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were both around thirty, and Slytherin stood at one hundred and twenty.

Rather than tattle to the Headmistress, Hermione decided to give Severus a piece of her mind herself. After dinner, she cornered him in the hall on the way to the dungeons.

"Can I help you, Miss Granger?" He looked at her with his usual annoyed and disgusted eyes.

"Yes, actually, Professor Snape, you can. I was just wondering why you have been taking so many points from Gryffindor already, seemingly simply because the students are Gryffindors." She crossed her arms and stared at him with piercing eyes.

"Are you suggesting that I take points from the students unfairly, Miss Granger?" His mouth twisted into an almost sadistic grin.

"That is precisely what I am suggesting. You took twenty points from a first year for her tie being crooked!" She took another step closer to him, feeling for her wand in her pocket.

"We have a very strict dress code here, Miss Granger." He continued to look amused at her anger.

"And I suppose if a Slytherin failed to tie his tie at all, you would take forty points from him, would you not?" She put her hand around her wand tightly within her robes.

"All the members of my house maintain their dress appropriately." He was overtaken with smugness.

"I beg to differ, sir. I had several in class today whose ties were incorrectly tied. However, miraculously, they failed to obtain your notice."

"May I ask why we are having such a long discussion about the state of the students' ties, Miss Granger? If you so desperately need to talk to someone, I am sure you can find Lupin alone before his girlfriend returns." He turned to walk away, but Hermione pulled out her wand and pointed it at his back.

"What exactly are you implying, Professor?" She held her wand threateningly at him as he turned around, his face twisted from his former bemused expression into a scowl.

"Careful, Miss Granger. It is unbecoming of a professor to threaten another, and even more unbecoming for one to lust after the fiancé of a friend." He reached for his own wand, his anger building.

Before he had a chance to realize it, Hermione cast first. "Expelliarmus!" His wand flew to her hand. "How dare you even suggest such a thing, you great, loathsome bat!"

He laughed haughtily at her, moving towards her and snatching his wand from her outstretched hand. "Very well, then. Have a pleasant evening, Miss Granger."

He took off swiftly, leaving Hermione angry and speechless. From behind her, she heard the voice of the Headmistress.

"Oh dear, now I see what you mean, Hermione." Minerva shook her head, and Hermione spun around to look at her. "I am sorry, dear girl. Before, I thought you were just exaggerating." She couldn't control herself as she let out a small laugh.

"Do you find the state of our House's points amusing, Minerva?" Hermione pocketed her wand, attempting to move past Minerva to head to her rooms.

"No, that is most distressing, but the two of you fight like an old married couple." Minerva laughed again but stopped when she saw the fury in Hermione's face. "Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. I was, myself, coming down to speak with Severus about his renewed attack upon our House."

"Well, don't bother. The more we scold him for it, the more the great bat is likely to do it." Hermione fought back tears. "We do not fight like an old married couple, Minerva. He hates me. I don't know what I ever did to him! All I did was set him free and love him with all of my heart, and still he can't stand the sight of me. I just don't know what I can do!" A low sob escaped from her throat.

Minerva moved closer to her and put her arm around her, leading her back to her rooms. "No one has ever really loved Severus like that before, Hermione. You cannot expect him to change the way he has been for over forty years overnight. If I had figured out how to do that, I would have done it a long time ago."

"He is not the man I thought he was, Minerva. He is spiteful, cruel, and unfeeling. How could I have ever loved a man like that?" She cried into the older witch's shoulder.

"Love chooses us, Hermione. You were meant to love him for some reason, and I think that eventually you will both figure it out. At least, I hope you do before someone around here gets hurt! Now, get some rest." Minerva placed Hermione in front of her door. "I promise that we will figure something out. Just don't give up on him."

Hermione looked up at Minerva and frowned. "It's too late for that, Professor. After the wedding, I am taking Zoe to live with my parents for a while. It isn't fair to her that when I look at her, all I see is him, and when I see him, all I feel is disgust."

Minerva became greatly saddened. "Do not say that, Hermione. You don't mean it."

"You have no idea how much I mean it, Minerva. Goodnight." Hermione went inside her rooms and collapsed on the floor in tears that didn't stop for the next hour.


	9. The Wedding

A/N: The usual mountain of thanks goes out to my lovely beta, anogete. I certainly could not have prepared this for posting without her.

Obligatory: No profits being made here with JKR's stuff. Just fun.

The rest of the first week had passed without great incident except for the continued attacks on Gryffindor which Hermione, Minerva, and Remus did everything ethically possible to mend as best they could. Hermione had not spoken to Severus at all since their confrontation in the hall, and she was not anxious to have another run in with him. He seemed also to be avoiding her whenever possible.

That Saturday found Hermione putting Zoe in a little maroon dress, while she wore black robes. At first, she thought it inappropriate to wear black to a wedding, but Ginny had said she was wearing black as well, insisting that it was "all the rage" in the Muggle world. Really, Hermione was not wearing black because it was fashionable, but because on this happiest of days, the last thing she was feeling was happiness.

She held her daughter close to her body, and looked into the girl's eyes; they were wide with curiosity as Zoe reached out to touch the cheek on which a small bit of rouge had been applied to her mother's face. "Zoe, darling, I need to tell you something. I know you probably won't understand, but I hope that some day you will. I don't want you to think that I don't love you, because I do. With all of my heart, I do. But you will be safer from me, your father, and the world if you leave here for a while and stay with your grandparents. I will come to visit you, but I will largely be away from you for a while. Do you understand?" She tried to get her daughter's attention.

Hermione was struck dumb with shock, however, when a small stuffed lion floated to her daughter's hand as though she had Accio'd for it. The child waved it about with great delight, a grin of satisfaction passing over her face.

"Good Merlin," Hermione breathed, amazed at her daughter's almost perfectly controlled wandless magic. "I have got to get you out of our world, Zoe."

"Is Mistress ready to go? Dobby has heard the other professors getting ready to Disapparate to the wedding!" Dobby shrunk the diaper bag and placed it in a pocket he had sewn in his Hogwarts house-elf uniform.

"Yes, Dobby, I am ready. Now, you remember everything that I told you, right? About Professor Snape?" She knelt down and looked at the obedient house-elf with a silent plea.

"Dobby remembers, Mistress! Dobby is to keep baby Zoe away from that bad man!" His face contorted into an almost Snape-like expression at the mention of his name.

"Very good, Dobby. Now, let's get going." Hermione handed Zoe to Dobby, and they took off for the front door of the castle.

As they approached the gates, Hermione could see Severus and Minerva several paces ahead of them, out of earshot. "Slow down a bit, Dobby," she implored to the house-elf, watching the gates as the two older teachers Disapparated away. "Okay, now we can go."

They took quick strides to the Disapparation point, and with a crack, they landed in a lush field that was covered with rows of chairs surrounding a large raised platform. Everything had been designed to look as though it faded into the beauty of the nature that surrounded them, and even the chairs charmed to camouflage themselves to blend into the grass. Hermione thought that it could not be a more perfect setting for the wedding of her two good friends.

"Hermione!" Hermione turned to see Harry and Ginny, the latter with James in her arms, striding towards her and yelling to her.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Ginny breathed deeply, looking around at the lush scene.

"It isn't as beautiful as your wedding was, Ginny, but it will do." Hermione smiled at her happy friends, wishing that life could be as seemingly simple for her as it was for them.

"So, Hermione, Tonks told us about Trelawney's prediction. Weird stuff, isn't it?" Harry shook his head, thinking of how his life had been changed by a similar outburst by the cooking sherry-drinking Divination professor.

"You know that I do not put much stock in that nonsense, Harry." Hermione shook her head and looked at the child who was waving her arms happily in Dobby's arms.

"You would if your parents were killed because of one," Harry commented softly.

"I am sorry, Harry; I know how you feel about it. But no one has been able to work out who it is, so I think that the best thing to do is just to ignore it and not let it get out of hand. Every day this week I have heard students in the halls making bets about who the subject of the prophecy was. It's been a laugh for them, really, since one of the students with the most money on her has a Muggle for a mother." She shook her head, trying to seem convincing in her dismissal of the prediction.

"Still, it would be nice to know that there was someone who could keep peace in our world and put it at peace with the Muggle world." Harry looked around wistfully.

Hermione felt a tug at her robes and looked down to see that Dobby appeared to be holding a bundle of air. As a familiar voice washed over her, she realized why her daughter had suddenly disappeared.

"What's the matter, Potter, are you afraid of sharing the spotlight with another chosen one?" Severus loomed over the younger trio as though he had glamoured himself to appear taller, though Harry nearly matched his height.

"Professor Snape," Harry spat, unsuccessfully hiding his dislike. "How wonderful to see you out and about."

Severus sneered at him. "No thanks to you, of course, Potter. But I am not here to discuss the finer points of our past with you, delighted though I am sure we would all be to relive the tale. Miss Granger, Minerva has asked me to inform you that she would like for all of the professors to sit together, so your presence will be required over there." He motioned to a row of chairs. "When the ceremony begins." With a sweep of his robes, he walked off.

"Hasn't changed much, has he?" Harry shook his head. "Dobby, where is Zoe?"

Zoe reappeared in Dobby's arms as Hermione explained, "I asked Dobby to keep Zoe away from Severus today. He doesn't know about her and I don't want to upset her." Hermione looked down at the ground.

"How have you managed to keep him from knowing about her? Everyone else at Hogwarts knows she's there!" Ginny smiled at the peaceful child in Dobby's arms.

"Severus isn't particularly concerned with the lives of others. She has failed to receive his notice." Hermione glared, seemingly at her shoes.

"Well, I think that it's a great idea to keep her away from him. You've seen how awful he is to students, so I can't imagine how he would be towards an even more innocent baby." Harry's face was still plastered with the hatred he harbored towards Severus.

"Why does he insist on calling you 'Miss Granger,' Hermione? Surely you rate at least a 'Professor' by now? Especially after all that you did for him." Ginny was amazed by the interaction.

"I think you will find that Severus doesn't believe he ever owes anyone anything, especially his life." Hermione tried to hide her anger.

"I think that bit is probably a lot more than he deserves," Harry commented darkly.

He waited for a scolding from his more mature and forgiving friend, but was surprised by her response. "I think you might be right about that one, Harry." She motioned for Dobby to come to her as she sensed the ceremony was about to begin.

"Yes, Mistress Hermione?" Dobby looked up at her, Zoe sleeping soundly in his arms.

"Listen, Dobby, I have to go sit with the professors, so I want you to take Zoe over there," she pointed to a tree in the rear corner of the outdoor room. "Keep her out of sight, but do try to enjoy the wedding. Guard her with your life, Dobby."

Dobby tightened his grasp on the child. "Dobby will keep Zoe safe, Mistress. Do not worry about us!" With that, he walked off to the hidden spot Hermione had indicated.

"We would have watched her, Hermione," Harry offered, gently touching the dark, untidy hair on his own child's head. "You know we love being with Zoe."

"And let the two of them make trouble together? I wouldn't do that to Remus and Tonks." Hermione smiled as they shared a laugh. "Now, if you will excuse me, I must join my colleagues. I only hope I don't end up sitting next to the greasy git."

Harry and Ginny were briefly taken aback by Hermione's words about Snape, but they only smiled and nodded their goodbyes as Hermione made her way to the row where the other professors were sitting. Sure enough, the only open seat was squarely between Sprout and Severus. Severus was deep in conversation with Minerva, who was sitting on his other side. He hardly noticed her as she moved to take her seat.

She fiddled nervously with the folds of her robes, suddenly overwhelmed by his smell as it wafted in her general direction. As the scent filled her nose, she found herself back in the small room at the Leaky Cauldron in her mind, and she shifted in her seat, trying to shake the memory from her thoughts.

"Miss Granger," Severus scolded as he glowered at her. "If you are unable to sit still like an adult, I am going to have to ask you to move to another seat."

"Trust me," she said through gritted teeth, "if there were another seat for me, I wouldn't hesitate to take it."

Just as he was about to retort with a snide remark, music began to play on an enchanted harp, and Hermione looked to see Remus and Tonks making their way towards the platform from opposite sides of the field. There was no walk down the aisle by the bride like in traditional Muggle weddings, because the couple gave themselves to each other. They were both dressed in white dress robes, and each glowed with joy as they prepared for their handfasting. Remus smiled at his bride-to-be, and Tonks' hair, though still untamed, glistened dark brown in the sun.

The ceremony had been simple yet beautiful, with an elderly witch performing the binding that would join together their souls in love for the rest of their lives.

Hermione watched them with envy, wishing that she could one day experience the happiness they were so obviously feeling. She knew, however, that she would never marry, and that her only constant companion would be her daughter. She didn't think she could ever love another like she had loved Severus.

Midway through the ceremony, Hermione found herself lost in thought. She knew that she still loved him, but what did that mean if that love was returned with disgust and hatred? What could she have changed that would have spared herself this heartbreak and allowed her to look on any other man with the love with which Tonks looked at Remus or Ginny looked at Harry? She knew that she couldn't go back and change the past, but looking at Severus out of the corner of her eye, she thought about Minerva's insistence that love chooses us. If that were true, had she always just been destined for loneliness?

She was broken from her reverie by the sound of everyone standing in their seats to cheer on the new Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. Hermione tried to wipe the mixed tears of joy and regret from her eyes.

As Remus and Tonks walked back through the crowd and everyone began to get ready to enjoy the food and drink that was waiting for them, Minerva reached over Severus and took Hermione's arm in her hand. "Come, Hermione, let's have a drink."

Severus scowled, apparently upset that Minerva was going to interrupt his peace with Hermione's presence, but as he had few other people to talk to, he could not really get away.

Hermione smiled, shot a look at Severus who was pointedly looking away from her, and nodded in agreement. She knew that she could just have a drink with her mentor and then return to her friends any time she wanted to.

They made their way over to a table that had appeared on the perimeter of the chairs, covered with various drinks. Hermione and Minerva both took a glass of wine, while Severus preferred a glass of firewhisky.

"I am so happy for Remus! It's about time he made an honest woman out of Nymphadora." Minerva wiped a stray tear from her eye.

"Yes, and it was a lovely ceremony. Surely the two of them didn't do all this on their own, though? When would they ever find the time?" Hermione looked around at the almost unreal setting in which she found herself.

"Oh, Merlin, no. They hired someone, some man who reminded me of a male Sybill when I met him, actually." Minerva chuckled through her pursed lips.

"Well, even if no one had been here and it had been in a broom cupboard, it would still be wonderful for them." Hermione dared a look at Severus, who had drained his glass of firewhisky and watched with satisfaction as it refilled itself.

"You're awfully quiet, Severus. Is something wrong?" Hermione began to wonder if this whole encounter had been somewhat contrived by Minerva to force the pair to speak with each other.

"No, Minerva. I was only thinking that it is a shame that I have to endure this spectacle when my time could be better spent in my office grading essays." He took a long sip from his glass.

"Honestly, Severus, you sound as though you aren't happy for Remus!" Minerva gave him a disapproving look.

"I have no reason to care one way or the other for how he chooses to live his life, Minerva." He took the last swig of his drink.

Before Hermione could come up with some smart remark to try to put him in his place, she was distracted by seeing Minerva look behind her with a curious expression. "Hermione, is that Dobby?" Minerva's voice was barely above a whisper as if trying to keep Severus from hearing, though he was close enough that he heard her words.

Hermione turned around to see Dobby rushing towards her with something of a limp in his step.

It wasn't until she realized that instead of Zoe, in his hands he held a full wine bottle that he was using to hit himself in the head that she knew that something was horribly wrong.

"Dobby!" Hermione gasped, kneeling down to meet the house-elf, who was absorbed in self-punishment. "Dobby, where is Zoe?"

"Who is this Zoe?" Severus demanded, remembering Hermione's strange exchange with Poppy the week before at the staff meeting.

"Dobby, please, tell me. I forbid you to continue punishing yourself!" Hermione knew that, though Dobby was a freed house-elf and not as bound by the demands of his masters as an enslaved elf, he would obey her.

Finally, he dropped the bottle and fell to his bony knees. "Dobby tried to stop them, Mistress. Dobby tried, but Dobby was not strong enough!"

"Stop whom, Dobby?" Minerva knelt down to join Hermione and the distressed elf.

"The bad men! The bad men like him!" Dobby pointed an accusatory finger at Severus, whose arms were crossed in front of his chest in haughty defiance.

"Why you little..." Severus made for Dobby with his hands outstretched, but he was stopped by a stern look from Minerva.

The scene was attracting an audience, as Ron, Harry, Ginny, Remus, Tonks, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley rushed over to see what the fuss was all about.

"Minerva, what's going on?" Remus put his hand on the Headmistress' shoulder.

"We don't know, exactly, Remus." She turned to Dobby, who was now sobbing on Hermione's shoulder. "Dobby, just tell us what happened. No one is going to be angry with you."

He wiped his nose on his shirt. "Dobby was watching Zoe like Mistress Hermione asked, but bad men came up behind Dobby and tortured Dobby. Before Dobby knew what was happening, the bad men took baby Zoe and disappeared! Baby Zoe is gone!" Dobby's sobs were renewed, and Hermione fell back on the grass.

"Who is Zoe?" Severus asked again, almost yelling this time and looking around at all the faces frozen in shock.

"Sir, please, Zoe is Hermione's daughter," Ginny whispered softly, gripping her own son tightly against her chest.

Before Severus had a chance to voice his complete horror at this information, Mrs. Weasley began crying. "Who would do such a thing, Minerva? She's just a baby!"

"So was I," Harry muttered, looking at his son, his face twisted up in terror.

Tonks looked on, holding her husband's hand. "Harry, Ron, come with me. We're going to go look for her..."

"No, Tonks, you can't; it's your wedding!" Hermione looked up at the Auror with a tearstained face.

"Nonsense, Hermione. I have been with Remus a long time, and this is more important than us right now." She knelt down next to Dobby. "Do you have any idea who these men were, Dobby?"

He looked up at her, his eyes wide with agony. "They were in black and wore horrible masks. Dobby couldn't see their faces, and they didn't say anything to Dobby; they just took baby Zoe!"

"Death Eaters," Mr. Weasley muttered.

"Why would Death Eaters take Miss Granger's," Severus scowled, "daughter?"

Minerva stood and shot a glance at Remus. "Who knows why they would do anything. Do they really need a reason to hurt anyone?"

Remus raised an eyebrow and looked from Minerva to Hermione. Deciding that now was not the time to drop any bombshells on the assembled crowd, he remained silent about the possible reason why someone would take this particular child. "Minerva is right. We can speculate all we would like about their motives, but what is important now is that we find Zoe immediately."

"Right," Tonks responded. "So, Harry, Ron, come with me. We've got to alert the Ministry and begin searching immediately. They have had more than enough time to Apparate to somewhere far away, but we have to try."

By this time, Hermione, who had been prostrate on the ground in tears, was wailing loudly, and Remus knelt down beside her, forcing a deeper scowl from Severus. "Hermione, dear, let's get you out of here."

"I am not going anywhere until I know where Zoe is!" She stared at him with distress.

"There is nothing you can do, Hermione. Besides, some of the best Aurors in the Ministry are looking for her. What more can you ask for?" He smoothed back the stray lock of hair that had come loose and was now sticking to the tears on her cheek.

Hermione lowered her voice considerably and whispered so that only Remus could hear her. "This is all my fault, Remus. I never should have brought her here. It never occurred to me that she would be in danger out of the castle."

"Of course it didn't, dear. How could it? None of us could have guessed that Death Eaters would turn up at my wedding." He laughed. "Unless they were here for the free food!"

She allowed a small giggle to escape her lips. "It's because of the prophecy, Remus. I just know it." She frowned again, wiping tears from her wet face.

"That's just silly, Hermione. How could they possibly know about the prophecy, or especially that it was about Zoe?" He produced a handkerchief from out of nowhere and handed it to her.

"I don't know, but I know that I'm right," she said, burying her face in the white cloth.

Minerva interrupted them. "Well, let's not all stand around. Remus, you deal with your guests. Molly and Arthur, alert the Order. Ginny, take James home for Merlin's sake. And Severus, take Hermione back to Hogwarts." She glared at the Potions master.

"I am NOT going anywhere," Hermione yelled, spitting on Severus' shoe.

He was livid as he tried to wipe the top of his shoe off on the grass. "I think this witch is more than capable of returning to the castle on her own."

"Severus, you will do as I say!" McGonagall pointed a stern finger at him.

"Fine," Severus spat. "Come, Miss Granger, we are leaving." He stared down at her, but she remained doubled over, clutching her stomach before she retched into the grass.

"I am not leaving without my baby," she whispered, wiping her mouth with Remus' handkerchief.

"Evanesco." Severus cast with his wand, causing the vomit to disappear from the ground. "You are leaving whether you want to or not," he warned, staring down at her.

"You will have to carry me if you mean to remove me." She dared with fury in her eyes.

"Have it your way." With one swift movement, he leaned down and swept her into his arms like he had done in the room of the Leaky Cauldron, and the memory caused Hermione to cry harder into his shoulder. With a pop, he Disapparated away with her back to the castle.

They were both silent as he carried her shaking body from the gates to the front doors of the castle. With long strides, he moved through the bewildered students sparsely walking the halls and commanded them to return to their common rooms as he took her to her room. He stood in front of the painting guarding Hermione's door.

"Password?" The painting asked, looking at the strange pair before her.

"I have not got the bloody password. Do you not recognize the inhabitant of these rooms?" He cursed quietly, infuriated that he had to argue with a painting.

He was startled by the small voice that came from the witch in his arms. "Lacewing flies," she muttered, causing the door to swing open.

He took her in and laid her on the couch, moving away with disgust the baby toys that were littered on it. "Wait here just one moment," he commanded, though he knew she was hardly listening as she cried. "Do not dare think of leaving."

He moved to the fireplace, and, throwing a handful of Floo Powder into the flames, called, "Severus Snape's office," before disappearing.

Moments later, he returned as he had left, now carrying a small vial in his hand. "Drink this now," he commanded Hermione sternly.

"What is it, poison?" She looked at him with red, accusatory eyes.

"Do not be ridiculous. It is a Calming Draught. It will shut you up." He held the vial out to her.

"I am not taking it," she insisted, turning her head away.

"Oh, yes you are," he warned, before uncorking it, grasping her by the hair, and forcing her to face him. "Whether you like it or not." With one strong hand, he pried her mouth open and dumped the contents of the vial inside, closing her mouth again so that she had no choice but to swallow it.

"How dare you, you great, horrible, unfeeling..." her voice became softer and softer as she calmed down. Her body relaxed, and though she felt so tired and calm that she could have fallen asleep right there, she was still very much aware of what was going on around her.

"Yes, yes," he interrupted her ranting. "I have heard it all before, Miss Granger." He stepped back from her as though she would infect him with some deadly disease. Looking around the room, he saw a framed portrait of Hermione and a small, pale child, her mother waving within the picture proudly and the girl gazing out with curious eyes. He stared at it in amazement before he was jolted back to consciousness by Hermione's muttering.

"I am so sorry, Severus, so sorry..." She shook her head around, her eyes practically rolling back into her head.

"For what part, exactly? Spitting on me or inconveniencing me?" He stared down at her, trying to muster his strength, though he could not control the wave of pity that passed over him. "What are you hiding from me?" His voice was hushed yet dark and threatening as he made a decision he hoped he would not regret. "Legilimens," he muttered softly, pointing his wand at her head.

Images began pouring into his mind of Hermione's child, but before he could delve deeper or process any of the information, he felt his wand fly out of his hand, breaking the connection.

"Severus!" came a voice from behind him, as he turned to see Minerva holding his wand, Remus behind her. "What do you think you are doing?"

"Good, now I assume that I can leave." He made for the door, not interested in giving either of them an explanation. They had not been honest with him about Hermione having a child, so there was no reason for him to apologize for trying to get the information himself.

Minerva held up a hand to stop him. "Are you sure that you want to leave?" She tried to determine if he had figured out his relation to the missing child.

"I am quite sure, Minerva. I have given Miss Granger a potion to settle her nerves, so if you do not mind, I am returning to my office to grade papers, since apparently no one is interested in telling me what in Merlin's name has been going on around here!" Without waiting for any sort of explanation from the bewildered Minerva and Remus, he grabbed his wand from the older witch and glided out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Hermione whimpered quietly through her daze, and Minerva and Remus strode over to her, both kneeling down next to the sofa.

"I guess she didn't tell him," Remus mused.

"But now she must, Remus. Don't you think he has the right to know that his child is in danger?"

"Only she can make that decision, Minerva. We cannot force her. Do you really think that she could bear the loss of her child and Severus' continued rejection of her?" Remus grabbed Hermione's hand gently as Minerva stroked her hair.

"Can you hear us, Hermione?" Minerva whispered.

"Yes," came her simple reply as her eyes fluttered open. "Oh, Minerva, I certainly can't tell him now. I can't believe he would try to violate me like that! I don't think it was a Calming Draught at all that he gave me. It didn't taste like it. I think he was trying to weaken my defenses!"

"I don't think that he would do something like that, Hermione." Minerva didn't sound so sure, in light of the violation she had interrupted.

"I should have known that you would defend him, Minerva," Hermione mumbled, trying to recover her wits.

"I am not defending him. I am just trying to tell you that he must be confused right now. Here, one of his colleagues has been caring for her child right under his nose, and he never knew anything about it. He is not used to being out of the loop." The Headmistress stood and began meandering about the room.

Hermione, not interested in continuing that particular path of the conversation, turned to Remus. "I am so sorry for ruining your wedding."

Remus laughed. "I can hardly find a way that it was your fault, Hermione. You didn't invite the Death Eaters to crash the party."

"But I should have just left her here with Dobby, or kept an eye on her myself, Severus be damned." Tears began forming again in her eyes.

"If they really wanted Zoe, do you think anything would have stopped them? If you had left her here or taken her to your parents, they would have found a way to get to her." He thought for a moment. "Hermione, I know that you don't want to hear this, but I have to say it. If this is related to the prophecy, it will help Tonks and the other Aurors to know that may have been the reason that Zoe was the target."

Hermione made to protest but Minerva interrupted her. "Remus is right, Hermione. I know that this isn't the way you would have wished it could turn out, but now I feel that it is out of your hands. It could just be a coincidence, but if it is not, don't you want your friends to be able to do everything in their power that they can with all of the available information?"

Hermione looked at the ceiling for a moment, tears dripping from her eyes. She knew that her friends were right, but she couldn't imagine what she would say to Severus. She was so furious with him for two years worth of offences, the least of which was his recent attempt to violate her mind when she was weakened.

Finally, she spoke. "Okay."

Minerva tried to suppress her shock. "Okay to what, Hermione?" She returned to the younger witch's side and looked at her hopefully.

"Okay, I will tell Tonks. But please give me some time with Severus before you bring anyone here to interrogate me. I just want..." She looked away from them and considered what she was about to do. "I just need for him to hear everything from me before anyone else gets involved."

"Of course, my dear!" She looked up at Remus with relief. "Remus, would you go fetch Severus, please?"

"I'll Petrify him and drag him here if I have to," Remus replied, as he practically ran from Hermione's room to the dungeons.


	10. To Admit and Acknowledge

A/N: As always, much love goes out to my dear beta, anogete, who brings order to the chaos of my comma usage.

Obligatory: I tried brewing some Polyjuice, but I just couldn't convince anyone that I am JKR. This is all for fun, and it all belongs to her.

A few moments later, after Minerva had sat silently watching over her weeping Transfiguration professor, Severus appeared at the door of Hermione's room. Bringing up the rear was Remus, sticking his wand into Severus' back.

"I demand to know the meaning of me being forced to return here at wand-point!" Snape stared wildly at Minerva as Remus lowered his wand with a grin.

"Ah, Severus, I am glad you could make it," Minerva replied as she stood and walked to the door. "Please sit down. We won't be far away if you need us, Hermione."

"Where are you two going?" Severus glared daggers at his colleagues.

"Sit down, Severus." Minerva's voice was threatening as she closed the door.

Hermione pulled herself upright as Severus sat down, his arms folded across his chest with impatience. They looked at each other for many moments as they both considered their situation.

"Is there something you would like to say to me, Miss Granger?" He averted his gaze and moved it about the room with determined indifference.

"Yes, Severus, but first I must ask you to surrender your wand." She pulled her own wand from her robes, held it up, and placed it on the small table between them. "Call it a show of trust, and a promise not to try to take more information from me than I am prepared to give you."

He grumbled to himself, but shoved his hand into his pocket to place his wand beside Hermione's. "There. Now, tell me what it is you had to tell me so urgently that it interrupted my work, Miss Granger."

She sighed and frowned. "Can you not call me Hermione, Severus?"

"I did not know that we were so informally acquainted." He looked around the room again, trying to control his temper.

Suddenly, she moved from her seat and knelt down in front of him, taking his hands in hers. Severus froze with shock. "But we are, Severus. Or, rather, we were once, not so long ago."

His head snapped back to face hers. "That was a long time ago for me, Hermione." His use of her first name combined with the first mention he had made of their relationship since he had been at Hogwarts startled Hermione.

As she felt the rough skin of his hands beneath her own, her body relaxed, and, for the first time in two years, she gazed at him with eyes full of affection. "Why did you never write back to me, Severus?"

He looked down at their entwined hands wanting to move his from her grasp, but he hesitated at the sound of her voice. "I did not have anything to say."

"Your silence spoke volumes to me." Her eyes dropped.

"What does any of this have to do with what happened today?" He finally withdrew his hands from her, and their eyes met again.

She decided to change her approach. "Can you think of any reason why Death Eaters would kidnap a baby?"

"Other than Death Eaters just being Death Eaters?" She nodded at him. "I suppose they would kidnap a child if they thought she were some threat to them?"

"And where would they get an idea like that?" She tried to determine if he was catching on.

"Are we going to play twenty questions, or are you going to tell me what you are trying to say?" He jumped forward in his seat and bore holes into her with his eyes.

"Will you please just bear with me for a moment? This isn't easy for me!" Her gaze pleaded with him.

"Very well. I suppose they could have obtained information from spies about some reason to see the child was a threat." He cocked an eyebrow at her, trying to determine all the ways he could refute what he knew she was suggesting.

"Just a reason? A prophecy, perhaps?" She took his hands again, and he did not fight back.

"Yes, a prophecy." His mind was suddenly flooded with thoughts of a prophecy from long ago, one he overheard that lead to the death of his childhood love. "But I don't see how...we don't even know for certain who it is Sybill meant..." His eyes wandered to the picture of Zoe, and they grew wide with mental calculations and a refusal to acknowledge what logic was telling him.

"I do." Hermione tightened her grip on Severus' hands. "And now, you do too."

"Please tell me how you have deluded yourself into believing that your daughter is this mysterious chosen one?" He shook his hands free from her grasp and stood up, pushed past her, and began pacing around her room. "You and Potter are always so eager to be the centers of attention!"

"Sit down, Severus. Just hear me out." She got up from the floor and sat on her sofa, patting the spot next to her and pleading with her expression for him to join her. After a moment of hesitation, he did, making sure to sit as far away from her as possible while still remaining on the seat.

"Very well, but hurry up. I am losing my patience and wasting time." He crossed his arms over his chest again to forbid her from touching him.

"Zoe celebrated her first birthday in the first week of this July, Severus, under the sign of the crab."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Many children are born under the sign of the crab, Hermione."

She ignored him and continued speaking. "She was born last year in the first week of July, nine months after the first week of October the year before!"

Severus' eyes glazed over with memories, but he was determined to shut out what he already suspected. "Go on."

Exasperated, she jumped to her feet and grabbed the wizard photo of her and Zoe that Severus had spied earlier, and, sitting down flush up against him, Hermione shoved it into his lap.

Quietly, she begged, "Minerva can see it, so why can't you?"

He gently picked up the framed photo and stared at it. "I am not sure what you mean."

"Yes, you are, Severus, it's just that for some reason, you have been trying to forget what happened." Tears formed in her eyes again.

He placed the picture on the table so hard Hermione feared it might break. "She has dark hair like Potter's, making her born of the same house and therefore not the girl in the prophecy." He grinned with smug satisfaction.

"She is NOT Harry's, you horrible git! Don't you remember? Don't you remember what I gave to you? What you took?" She could barely bring herself to speak the words. "How could she possibly be anyone else's?"

Severus sat, dumbstruck, looking into Hermione's eyes. He tried to figure out a way to enter her thoughts without her knowing to determine if it was the truth, though he knew that it was. He attempted to find words to say, but he couldn't.

"Her eyes, Severus. Look at her eyes." She shoved the picture back in his hands.

He stared at the happy baby in the portrait, and her conception was called to his mind from a time he had fought for so hard and so long to forget. "Born of rival houses," he muttered.

"Her existence must be acknowledged by two," she whispered back. "One Gryffindor parent, one Slytherin, one Muggleborn, one half-blood. A girl with great magic, so great that even at one year she can perform well controlled, simple spells."

Hermione gazed at him hopefully, but rather than take her into his arms, he threw the picture across the room, shattering the glass. "How could you?" he asked quietly.

"How could I? How could you?" Her insides suddenly boiled over with anger.

"Do you think that it was so easy for me to walk away from you? To forget about you? Do you? And now, now I am forced to relive it all and be bound to you and your child against my will!" He jumped from his seat. "And all of you laughing at me behind my back! Poor Severus, he does not know that his own child is living right under his nose!"

"Are you mad? How could I tell you with the way you have behaved towards me? First you ignore me for almost two years, and then, when I finally think there is some hope, you treat me like vermin, like I am no better than some bumbling first year who doesn't deserve your attention. Do you really think I was going to be so quick to risk exposing my innocent daughter to your indifference?" She stood up and pointed fiercely at the door. "Get out of my sight!"

"With pleasure, Miss Granger." He picked up his wand, moved to the door and opened it, revealing Minerva and Remus. Both were pressed so tightly against it that they nearly fell over.

"I suppose I am to assume that the two of you knew all about this?" Severus' eyes darted back and forth between the two spying Gryffindors.

"Severus, really. Are you going to stand there and tell us that you do not care that your daughter is now in very real danger from your old friends?" Remus stared him down.

"You have all been lying to me!" he roared, trying to push past them as Remus restrained him.

"Only Minerva and I knew, and Hermione begged us not to tell you. Frankly, I don't blame her after seeing your true feelings." Remus' voice suddenly became quiet as he noticed the distress in Hermione's face.

Severus held his wand threateningly at Remus. "Do not presume to know anything about my feelings, Lupin."

"I think that you owe Hermione an apology," Remus insisted, ignoring the wand.

"And for what precisely do I owe her an apology? She is the one who has kept the truth from me about my own daughter!" He finally lowered the wand.

"Severus, you have given her no reason to trust you." Minerva put a hand gently on his arm.

Severus looked at Minerva, his friend, with a temporary look of sadness before returning to a more stern expression. He spoke with a low, honest voice. "That is what this is all about, is it not? Not one of you trusts me, not even you, Minerva."

Hermione, who had been silent during the exchange between the older teachers, suddenly jumped from her seat and threw herself at Severus. He was so taken aback that all he could do was catch her in his arms as she gripped tightly to the folds of his robes.

"I trust you, Severus, don't you see that?" Hermione pressed her face against Severus' chest. "Don't you see that I have trusted you? That I have loved you? Don't you know how much you're hurting me?" Sobs fell from her lips freely. "You don't have to love me, but you have to help Zoe! You have to find our daughter!"

His guard completely collapsed as he wrapped his arms around her, almost forgetting that Minerva and Remus were in the room. "I need some time, Hermione. I cannot face you."

Severus pulled free of Hermione's clutches and left the room quietly, causing Hermione to drop to her knees on the floor and renew her angry cries. She pounded the floor as Remus and Minerva watched, stunned, unsure of what to say and neither able to process all of the events of the day at once.

Finally, Minerva spoke. "Remus, go to Poppy and get a sleeping draught, a real one this time. I don't know what we're going to do next, but I am afraid for Hermione if she continues like this."

"What about Severus?" Remus asked quietly.

"I'm not sure yet, but hopefully I will think of something before anyone says anything they can't take back." Minerva looked at the young witch crumpled on the floor.

"Albus would know what to do," Remus commented, lost in thought.

Minerva's eyes snapped open. "You are absolutely right, Remus." She took off from the room, leaving Remus to care for his broken friend.


	11. An Old Friend

i A/N: As always, much love goes out to my dear beta, anogete, who brings order to the chaos of my comma usage.

Obligatory: I tried brewing some Polyjuice, but I just couldn't convince anyone that I am JKR. This is all for fun, and it all belongs to her. /I 

The next morning, Hermione awoke to find herself still in her dress robes and curled up on the couch. She had remembered Remus giving her the Sleeping Draught the night before, but after that she could recall nothing.

She felt that she should still be crying over the fact that her daughter was missing, and she wanted to, but she found that she probably had no more tears left. She had hoped that perhaps all of this was a terrible dream, but when she went to Zoe's room and found it empty, she knew that it was reality.

Stepping into her shower, she allowed the hot water to run over her, soothing her wearied body. She stood there for quite some time, her eyes closed and face raised to the jets, trying to bring life back to herself.

After what seemed like hours, Hermione emerged from her bathroom, her damp hair coiled into a thick bun, and she put on a set of her black teaching robes. She was grateful that she didn't have to teach, because she wasn't sure that she could hold herself together long enough to make it through a day of classes.

She was startled when she heard the portrait over her fireplace clear her throat. "A Nymphadora Lupin and a Remus Lupin to see you, Professor Granger."

"Yes, let them in, please." The door opened and her newly wedded friends entered.

"Wotcher, Hermione," Tonks greeted her quietly.

"Good morning, Hermione. I trust you slept well?" Remus motioned Tonks over to the sofa, where they sat themselves and looked up at Hermione.

"I'm fine, and I apologize once again for..."

"Just stop that right now," commanded Tonks. "We are going to get to the bottom of all of this. Now, I hate to cut right down to business, but Remus says that you have something to tell me about Zoe that could help our investigation."

Hermione inhaled sharply and cast a wary glance at Remus. "Yes, I do, and I hope you will not be angry with me because I held it back from you yesterday, but I had my reasons."

"It's alright, Hermione. What's important is that you are telling her now," Remus soothed, putting his arm around his bride as if bracing her for the information she was about to receive.

Hermione took another deep breath. "Well, you remember the prophecy from the night of the sorting?"

Tonks nodded. "Of course. It was filed at the Ministry the next day in the Department of Mysteries. Even though it wasn't labeled with anyone yet, since I had been here I worked out what it likely was and discussed it with the Aurors."

"Well, it just so happens that we have a pretty good idea who she was talking about. I believe, and Minerva and Remus agree, that it was about Zoe." Hermione waited for the shock to pass over Tonks.

The older witch looked bewildered. "But Hermione, how can that be? All of us at the Ministry believe that it means that one of the parents must be from Slytherin..." Realization dawned on Tonks. "Slytherin and Gryffindor would be the best possible combination for such a description of rival houses, wouldn't it be?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, it would be."

"But that would mean that Zoe's father is..."

"Zoe was born in the first week of July, and she already shows great magical potential. She also has one Slytherin and one Gryffindor parent." Hermione shot a pleading glance at Remus, trying to tell him that she didn't think she could say the words.

"Tonks, darling, what Hermione is trying to tell you is that Severus is Zoe's father. All of the clues from the prophecy seem to point to her. She has two very powerful magical parents, one a Muggleborn and one a half-blood, and, before last night, she had yet to be acknowledged as the child of Hermione and Severus."

Tonks looked back and forth between Remus and Hermione. "So Severus didn't know until now that Zoe was his daughter?"

"No. It's a rather complicated story that isn't important now. After hearing the prophecy, Hermione had decided that if Severus never found out, then he couldn't acknowledge her, and Zoe couldn't become this chosen one." Remus looked at Hermione with pity.

"But it seems that keeping it from him didn't really matter." Hermione frowned. "She is still in great danger."

Tonks thought for a moment. "I think it's very important that you have told me this, Hermione, but I do not want to assume anything. We will proceed as we have been, intensifying our search for any remaining Death Eaters. If what you believe about her is true, that only gives us a motive, and it won't change the fact that we are searching for a bunch of evil, kidnapping prats." She smiled at Hermione. "Don't you worry, Hermione; we are going to find Zoe."

"Listen, I know that you will have to tell Ron and Harry about this, but please tell them that before they are tempted to jump to any conclusions or get angry, they should talk to me. I know a lot of people will be hurt that I never said anything, but I had my reasons. I still do." Hermione frowned.

"I will take care of Harry, Hermione, don't worry about it." Remus reached across the table for Hermione's hand. "I don't think that they are so unreasonable that they would allow Zoe's paternity to keep them from doing their best to locate their best friend's daughter."

"And speaking of that lot, I must be off." Tonks stood up, nearly tripping over the table in front of her. "We'll keep you posted, Hermione, but I must ask you one favor."

"Anything, Tonks."

"Stay out of this. We won't be able to do our job if you put yourself in danger trying to find Zoe yourself." She shook a stern finger at Hermione, suddenly looking very much like McGonagall.

Hermione hesitated. "I promise, Tonks, that I won't get in your way."

"Right. If you do, I am holding my husband personally responsible." She smiled down at Remus. "Just try not to worry too much. I know that's a tall order, but we are going to find her, Hermione." With a near trip over her own feet, Tonks rushed out of the room.

Remus turned his gaze back to Hermione. "She's right, you know."

"What, that they'll find Zoe?" She looked up with big, hopeful eyes.

"Well, that as well, but that you need to stay out of the way. Merlin knows who it was that took Zoe and where they have her now, so the worst thing that you can do is go off trying to retrieve her on your own. You're a great witch, Hermione, but alone, I think you would put the both of you in danger trying to do it yourself." He squeezed her hand and looked at her with intense seriousness.

"I've already promised to stay out of the way, Remus. I know that I have responsibilities here and to all of you, and I know that Tonks, Ron, and Harry can do their jobs." She looked around the room, trying to convince herself that she could stay out of the search for Zoe.

There was a sudden knock at the door. "Come in," Hermione called.

An exasperated McGonagall stepped inside. "Hermione, could you come to my office?" She tried to catch her breath.

"Of course, Minerva." Hermione looked up with apprehension before standing and walking towards the door, followed by Remus, who strolled off in the other direction.

As they walked towards the Headmistress' office, Minerva asked, "Oh, and I am sorry for being so abrupt earlier, but how are you hanging in, dear?"

"As well as can be expected, I think. I don't think it really hit me until I woke up this morning and she was..." Hermione trailed off, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

Minerva put her arm around the younger witch's shoulder. "I know, but don't worry. The Aurors will find her."

Hermione laughed quietly. "Everyone's been saying that to me. I wonder if they are trying to convince me or themselves."

They arrived at the Headmistress' office, and Minerva muttered to the gargoyles guarding the staircase, "Cockroach Clusters." At Hermione's amused look, Minerva explained, "If Albus weren't already dead, I would kill him. He's somehow managed to make it so that I can't change the password to anything other than sweets."

Hermione smiled. "That sounds like Albus."

Minerva chuckled as she and Hermione ascended the spiral staircase. "Not that I have tried very hard to change it, mind. It's much better to be annoyed with Albus than satisfied with defeating him, I think."

As they moved into the office, Hermione sat at her usual chair in front of the desk. Minerva, rather than sit down in her seat, looked around the paintings impatiently, glancing several times at a portrait that contained only an empty seat. "Dippet," she called, "I warned you not to let him go."

The painting of the past Headmaster looked at her from a nearby frame. "I tried, Minerva, but you know how he is!"

Suddenly, Albus reappeared in the empty painting. "I am here, Minerva. Don't get your wand in a knot!"

Hermione jumped from her seat with a look of joy in her face. "Professor!" she gasped.

"You have no idea how hard it was for me to track him down, Hermione. He's always moving around all of the portraits in the school spying. I had all of the paintings and all of the ghosts working all night to track him down!" Minerva cast a stern look at Albus as he settled back in his seat.

"Ah, Minerva, you know I wouldn't be of much use if I didn't know everything that was going on around here." He smiled as Minerva's face continued to boil with irritation.

"Well, I am going to leave the two of you alone," Minerva said to Hermione, who was still looking with wonder at the moving painting of Albus.

"Thank you, Minerva." Hermione was still unable to tear her eyes away from Albus as Minerva left the office.

"Please, my dear, sit down. I hear that you might do well with a chat." Albus motioned to the chair behind Hermione, and she turned it to face the wall and sat down in it.

"Pardon me, Headmaster, but I didn't know that the people in paintings were actually..."

"Sentient?" he interrupted, laughing. "Yes, well, luckily I had the foresight to ensure that my painting could be of some use before I died. It took Minerva quite some time to figure it out, as when she saw me I was usually sleeping or missing from my portrait entirely. My game was finished, however, when she caught me trying to overhear a conversation she was having with a student in here a couple of years ago. You should have seen her!" He shook his head with great amusement.

Hermione tried to shake the bewilderment from her head. "I take it that you know everything that's been going on, then."

"Of course. Who do you think it was that let it slip to Minerva that she might consider looking more carefully at Zoe's eyes?" He smiled at her kindly.

"How long have you known?" Hermione was taken aback.

"I watched her being born in the hospital wing. When Poppy accidentally held her too close to a painting, I saw the eyes and knew immediately that she was Severus'. I pride myself on being quite observant, my dear, amongst other things." He chuckled.

"I am so afraid, Headmaster..."

"Please, dear, call me Albus. I am just a painting, after all." He grinned at her, forcing a small laugh from her throat.

"Do you think that Sybill was right, Albus?"

He stroked his chin in thought. "While I am usually hostile towards much of Divination, I must say that when Sybill is right, she is quite right. Zoe has an incredibly powerful magical heritage quite by accident. You and Severus, by all stretches of the imagination, never should have been as powerful as you are, and yet you are. Two such parents coming together, like James and Lily or you and Severus, are bound to create a very special child."

"But how did this happen?" She looked away from the picture briefly.

"I do not think that we will ever know, my dear, but it has, and you must face it head on and see that she is nurtured to the best of your ability to her magical strength."

"But if they never find her, or if she has been killed, then it doesn't do to talk about how I raise her." She looked painfully at the floor.

"She will not be killed, Hermione. If my rather usually correct suspicions are accurate, I believe she has been taken to be an ally for our enemies. If she can unite the wizarding and Muggle world in peace, certainly she could aid Tom's remaining friends in using that power for evil." He thought for a moment. "Yes, she is most certainly going to be kept alive in the hopes that they can train her to the ways of dark magic alone."

"What do you mean, alone?" She gazed at him curiously.

Albus laughed. "Severus may be on our side, Hermione, but surely you know that he is well-trained in the dark arts."

"Certainly Zoe is not meant to be that proficient in the dark arts?" Hermione shot an incredulous look at him.

"Of course!" He chuckled. "Why else would it be so important that Severus acknowledge her if not to train her in the dark arts as well as you will train her in good magic?"

Hermione began to understand, but she was still in mild disbelief. "You have spoken with Severus, haven't you?" She tried to search the rather accurately painted twinkling eyes.

"I have, Hermione, which is why I think Minerva insisted on tracking me down and bringing you to speak with me." He laughed again.

"Are you going to tell me what he said?" Hermione became angry. "Sorry, Albus. I guess I am just getting sick of not knowing how he feels."

"It's quite alright. However, sadly, I do not think even he knows how he feels. I have not really spoken to him before last night, and I must say that he was in a right state then. Why, when he realized that I was in the portrait in his study, he spent about fifteen minutes yelling at me for spying before he ever realized it was me!" Albus became temporarily lost in the amusement of the memory.

"Is he angry with me?" Hermione's wide eyes begged for answers.

"He is, Hermione. He is angry with you for keeping the truth from him, but I think that more than that he is angry with himself. From my observations of you since he has returned to Hogwarts, I have gathered you do not believe that he cares for you one wit?"

"Certainly you have seen the way he behaves towards me, Albus. Why, last night he was so..." She trailed off, the memory of her confrontation with him still painfully fresh in her mind.

Albus laughed. "Severus is not one to wear his heart on his sleeve. Come to think of it, he is hardly one to wear it anywhere, save in a locked box I used to joke with him that he kept hidden in his study."

"But he used to be so kind to me, Albus, back when we were working to free him from Azkaban. Why after so many months of being close would he pull back so suddenly?" Hermione's expression turned to one of distress.

"I believe that Severus was not prepared for how strongly he would feel for you, Hermione. He was prepared to be friends with you, maybe more, and even to try to repay his life debt to you, but what he did not intend was to fall in love with you so suddenly and completely." His twinkling eyes searched Hermione's.

"He loves me?" She looked at him with disbelief.

"Of course he does! But that night, when Zoe was, well, you know... ." They both blushed as he trailed off. "He could not bring himself to understand why you would give such an important gift to him. He responded the only way he knew how to respond."

"By rebuilding the impenetrable fortress around his heart that even he can't tear down?" Hermione gazed off in the distance.

"Precisely, my dear. He thought that if he could forget you, he could rid himself of any kind of feeling he had for you. Needless to say, that has been easier said than done, especially now that he realizes what else came from the night you were together." Suddenly, Albus frowned.

"But he's said such hateful things to me, Albus. He accused me of sleeping with Harry and all but accused me of sleeping with Remus. How could anyone say anything like that to someone they loved?" She looked back at him with confusion.

Albus laughed again. "You forget that we are talking about the man who called the first love of his life a Mudblood in front of a crowd of onlookers, Hermione. Severus was not raised to deal with his emotions in a mature manner."

Hermione thought back to the Pensieve memory Harry had described to her of Severus berating Lily Potter when she was trying to get James Potter and his friends to stop bullying him. "So what am I meant to do now, Albus? Will he admit his feelings to me now that he knows he can't escape them so easily?"

Finally, Albus looked apprehensive. "I think that may prove difficult currently, Hermione, as Severus is now, well..."

Suddenly, the office door burst open to reveal a fuming McGonagall. "He's gone!" she blurted out.

"Ah, yes, now we get to the heart of the matter," Albus admitted with great sadness.

"You knew he was gone, Albus? You knew, and you haven't said a word to me?" Minerva marched angrily to the portrait.

"Minerva, my dear, I simply thought that you could figure it out on your own!" He laughed but stopped as he realized her infuriated expression. "I am sorry, Minerva. I just thought it was more important for me to speak with Hermione before dropping that on her."

"Minerva, Albus, what do you mean that he's gone? Where has he gone?" Her eyes darted back and forth between them.

"Yes, Albus, where has he gone?" Minerva placed her hands on her hips and glared at him.

"That, I am afraid, I do not know. I tried very hard to convince him to stay, but he insisted that he had to leave." He frowned at Hermione's newly forming tears. "I am sure that he will come back, Hermione. He just needs some time."

Her face twisted to one of disgust. "Yes, well that is what he told me last night, but I assumed he meant he needed the night, not some indeterminable amount of time during which we would be unable to find him!"

"He will come back, Hermione. If nothing else, he is an honorable man and will face his responsibilities to you and Zoe head on, well, eventually." He shook his head with mirth at Minerva's irritated expression.

"Eventually?" Minerva growled. "He will eventually return to his responsibilities to them, to me, to this school? How could you let him get away?"

"I'm sure you can understand that I am not very intimidating as a painting, Minerva. Now, if you two will excuse me, I have heard a rumor that Peeves is about to do something very amusing near the Hufflepuff common room, and I am quite anxious to see what he's up to. It is sure to be quite a scene if you are interested in joining me. Farewell, for now, Hermione. Minerva, I am sure you will find me later to scream me permanently into the Astronomy tower." With a nod, Albus disappeared from his portrait.

Minerva turned to Hermione. "Well, I hope you got something more out of that than what I just did, Hermione."

Hermione frowned. "I think, at this point, all I have received is more confusion."

"Where Albus is concerned, that is quite understandable." She looked up at the empty painting with fury once again. "Well, I suppose I had better call a staff meeting. We will need to decide how to deal with our Potions professor's sudden leave of absence."


	12. Facing the Truth

A/N: The usual thanks go out to my beta, anogete, for patiently sifting through the terror that is my comma usage. Also, I would like to thank my readers and reviewers for your patience in waiting for me to switch archives. I will do my best to get updates here as quickly as possible so as not to keep you in suspense!

Obligatory: I get no money from playing with JKR's world, just fun.

"Everyone, please, sit down," Minerva commanded as the staff filed into the room, nearly all of them patting Hermione's shoulder with silent sympathy as they passed her.

Professor Sprout leaned towards Hermione from her seat and spoke quietly. "If you need anything, dear, anything at all, please let me know. Don't hesitate to come to me even if you just need a chat!"

Hermione smiled. "Thank you for that."

Minerva cleared her throat and sat down in her seat as everyone turned towards her. "Yes, now, I am sure that news has spread rather quickly around the castle, but I would like to set the record straight before any rumors get out of hand." She looked at Hermione.

"If it's alright, Minerva, I would like to tell everyone," Hermione requested firmly.

"Of course, dear. Go ahead." She motioned for everyone to listen to the younger witch.

"Thank you. Now, as I am sure you know, my daughter, Zoe, was kidnapped by Death Eaters at Remus' wedding yesterday. What you may not be so clear on is why we suspect she was taken." She took a sharp inhale of breath. "We believe, well, Remus, Minerva and I believe, that she was taken because of the prophecy that was made the night of the sorting ceremony." Everyone glanced at Trelawney, but she was apparently oblivious, not remembering the trance during which she had made the prediction.

"How do you know that?" Flitwick looked at Hermione with concern.

"Well, that's where we get to the heart of the matter. You see, I know that none of you have ever pressured me to tell you how Zoe came into the world, and I appreciate your respect for the secret I have kept. However, in light of recent events, I am forced to admit that Severus is her father." She cast a glance at Severus' empty chair.

"Snape?" Hagrid asked abruptly.

"Yes, Severus is Zoe's father, and as she was born from a Gryffindor and a Slytherin under the sign of the crab, and until last night, she had not be acknowledged by both of her parents..."

"Good Merlin..." Poppy muttered, bewilderment undisguised in her expression.

"I think we can agree that if Death Eaters were made aware of the prophecy and somehow figured out that it may have referred to Zoe, they would want her as an ally for their side." Remus looked around at his confused colleagues.

"But how would they get such information?" Professor Vector asked quietly.

"Who can say for certain? The prophecy was filed in the Department of Mysteries, and certainly enough students heard it, so anyone from any of those places could have passed the information on to an interested party," Remus suggested.

"Minerva, where is Severus?" Flitwick looked at the vacant chair on the opposite side of the Headmistress from his own.

"Unfortunately, Severus has gone missing. After Hermione told him the truth last night, he left the castle without a word to anyone but Albus' portrait, and, as you can imagine, Albus has not been of much help in providing us with information about his possible whereabouts." Minerva shot an angry glance at the empty chair, and then to a portrait that showed the distinct sign of someone quickly exiting it.

"Why that no good..." Hagrid began.

"Yes, Hagrid, that's enough," Minerva interrupted. "Right now, the Ministry is doing everything they can to locate Zoe and the Death Eaters. Before anyone scoffs at that, Tonks, Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley are heading up the investigation, so I have every hope that they will do whatever is possible to locate them."

"But we are still short one professor," Remus reminded them.

"Yes, Remus, we are. Since Hermione is equally qualified to teach Transfiguration and Potions, she will take over Severus' class and I will teach hers, unless anyone has a better idea?" She looked around at the rest of the staff, all of whom nodded their agreement. "Right, now does anyone have anything else they would like to add? Very well. Dismissed." Minerva stood up and rushed to the door to prepare to return to teaching.

Remus stood and walked to Hermione's chair as the room erupted into hushed whispers. "I hope you got what you needed from your conversation with Albus?" He smiled down at her.

"He thinks that Severus loves me, Remus." She gazed at the floor.

"Of course he does, dear. Otherwise, how could he hate you so much?" They both laughed uncomfortably and moved to leave the room, allowing the rest of the staff to continue processing all they had just learned.

Hermione sat in her room, trying to figure out how to pick up teaching Potions so suddenly, when Ginny's head popped into her fireplace. "Hermione? Can I come through?"

"Where is James?" Hermione asked with worry.

Ginny laughed. "He's with Mum and Dad. Mum reckons that if she was able to keep track of Fred and George for so long, she can certainly keep an eye on James. I told her I wasn't so sure."

"I think she can manage him," Hermione assured her with a smile. "Please, come on through."

Ginny stepped through the fireplace and stood before Hermione, brushing the soot from her robes. "How are you holding up?"

"Considering everything, pretty well, I think. Knowing that Harry is working the case helps, of course. I take it he's told you everything by the strange look on your face." She chuckled at Ginny's confused expression.

"He's absolutely furious that you never told him, Hermione." She sat down on the chair across from her friend.

"And you?" Hermione tried to search Ginny's feelings.

"I'm not angry with you at all. I tried to explain to him that if you kept it from us you must have had a reason. But Hermione, now that we know, you have to tell me: do you love him? Snape, I mean." She reached for the cup of tea Hermione had conjured for her.

Hermione sighed. "I do love him, Gin. I have for a long time. You remember how we got on really well during his trial?" Ginny nodded. "Well, it happened the day he was set free. I told him how I felt, and I thought he felt the same, but then he just disappeared, and I never heard from him again until I had to go fetch him to bring him back to Hogwarts. Since he's been here he's been just awful to me. After I heard the prophecy and realized what it might mean, there was no way I was going to tell him and risk fulfilling it by allowing him to acknowledge her, particularly since he was such an awful prat to me."

"I understand, Hermione. At least, I think I do. But you know you could have talked to me about it. You know I would never judge you. After all, you can't help who you love, like I tried to tell Harry so many times in my sixth year." She thought lovingly of her husband.

"I know I should have, but I just couldn't. I was so hurt and confused that I didn't know what to do. Now I count that among my many regrets." Ginny reached out to hold Hermione's hand. "Are you sure Harry and Ron don't hate me?"

Ginny laughed. "I think hate is a strong word. I only spoke with them briefly after Tonks came and told them before they went off, and I think that more than anything they were sort of horrified that you would sleep with the great bat."

Hermione chuckled along with her friend. "When he's not being a git, he actually isn't too bad. Not that I've seen him not be a git for almost two years, mind." She sighed heavily. "It's a bit overwhelming, you know. First all this with Severus, then Zoe disappearing, and now having to face everyone I've been keeping the truth from. And on top of all of that, I have to teach Potions now!"

Ginny's expression turned to one of confusion. "Why Potions?"

"Oh, right, I haven't told you. Severus left last night after I told him about Zoe." She shook her head and looked at the shards of glass on the ground from where Severus had thrown the portrait of his daughter. She pointed her wand at it and cast, "Reparo." The picture repaired itself and returned to its place above the fireplace.

"I don't know how you're not a nervous wreck right now!" Ginny tightened her renewed grip on Hermione's hand.

"I am. I just hide it really well." She smiled, and they both laughed. Hermione felt as though letting the truth get out had lifted an enormous weight from her chest that made the pain of her daughter's kidnapping a bit easier to bear.

The next day, Hermione took breakfast in her rooms to make sure she was well prepared to face the task of teaching Potions. Minerva had been unable to get into Severus' office to retrieve any notes he had on what he had been doing with his classes thus far, so Hermione prepared herself to start from scratch.

The first class of the day was a third year Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw class. The students looked shocked to come into the dungeon classroom and find their Transfiguration professor waiting for them, and they sat silently looking back and forth at each other.

"Good morning, class. I trust you all had a pleasant weekend?" She looked around at the bewildered students with a smile.

A Ravenclaw student raised her hand, and Hermione nodded to her. "Professor Granger, excuse me, but where is P-Professor Snape?" She shuddered at his name.

Hermione chuckled. "Professor Snape has taken a brief leave of absence, Alexandra, so I am going to be teaching this class for the time being while the Headmistress will take over Transfiguration. I only hope that I can conduct your lessons with Professor Snape's exacting standards." She smiled, inviting the students to relax and laugh. "Now, I do not have Professor Snape's notes, so I am afraid we will have to start from scratch, unless someone can tell me what he has been teaching you for the last week?" She looked around and saw no hands raised.

A Hufflepuff boy, Brian, raised his hand after quite a bit of hesitation. "Yes Brian?" Hermione nodded at him.

"Mostly he's just been terrifying us, Professor, if I may be so bold." He looked down with embarrassment while the rest of the class nodded their assent.

"Five points to Hufflepuff for your assistance, Brian, though I thought as much." She grinned at him as he beamed with pride. "Well, I suppose we had better get to work. Let's get your cauldrons out and start on a potion, shall we?" She waved her wand at the board, and a list of ingredients appeared. "And let's get some more light in here." With another wave of her wand, more candelabras appeared to give the dank room a brighter glow.

Her classes went well, even the fifth year Slytherin and Gryffindor class where she took the students out on the grounds to learn how to collect the best fresh ingredients for potions. Though the Slytherins were disappointed not to have their Head of House with them, they were appeased by the interesting lesson and Hermione's willingness to award points fairly to all of the houses.

Hermione was surprised that none of the students seemed to know of Zoe's disappearance, and if they did, they didn't mention it. Almost all of the students, save perhaps the first years, knew about Zoe, as in the previous year Hermione had often had the baby out and about, visiting the other professors or watching a Quidditch game.

Sitting alone in her room after dinner, Hermione sipped at a glass of wine as she looked at a photo album full of pictures of the first year of Zoe's life. She laughed at some of them through her tears, and occasionally would glance longingly at her daughter's room, wishing that she could be of some help in the search for the Death Eaters that took her.

She felt quite useless hanging around the castle, teaching classes like nothing had happened. She wanted to be out searching for Zoe, but she had promised everyone that she would stay put, and she didn't want to distress Minerva any more by making the school two professors short.

Her thoughts strayed to Severus. From within a drawer in her desk, she had pulled the copy of the Daily Prophet from the day the Ministry had declared Severus to be innocent. She read the front page article to herself and occasionally looked at the moving photograph of her standing next to Severus, smiling, as he faced the crowd of reporters in the ground floor of the Ministry. He looked annoyed as usual, but he would cast a brief smile at Hermione from time to time, who from the activity in the picture looked to be answering the numerous questions thrown at them for him.

Tears in her eyes and exhausted from the immense strain on her emotions over the last three days, Hermione fell into a heavy sleep on her sofa.


	13. The Other Seer

A/N: More mountains of thanks go out to my dear beta, anogete, as well as to my lovely readers. Your feedback makes posting this story a very enjoyable experience for me.

Obligatory: This world belongs to JKR. I just like to play around in it.

Days turned to weeks, and almost a month after Zoe had gone missing and Severus had fled the castle, there had been no leads on either of them. Of course, the Ministry didn't bother themselves to look for Severus, but Minerva, with the help of Albus' portrait, had been doing an investigation of her own in her free time, what little she had.

As time had passed, Hermione had become more withdrawn but also more resigned to the fate of her child. She locked Zoe's room and charmed the door to fade into the wall, and put away all traces of her daughter. If the worst was to come, she wanted to be as prepared for it as possible, though she didn't know if there was much she could do to make the possibilities any more palatable.

Classes had progressed well for Hermione, and the students relaxed during Potions, even the Slytherins, hoping that perhaps Severus' so-called leave of absence would be permanent. Hermione even had to admit to herself that she rather preferred teaching Potions to Transfiguration, but she never told Minerva so.

She had visits with her friends outside of school, eventually having to face Ron and Harry about the truth of Zoe's creation. She could tell that they were not pleased, but knew better than to lecture her over it in the middle of telling her that there had been little progress in finding any of the Death Eaters or her daughter.

One Saturday morning, Hermione received a visit from Tonks and Remus, both looking very serious.

"Hello, Hermione, could we have a minute?" Remus asked as he waited to be invited into her rooms.

"Of course, please, come in. You know that I am always happy to see the both of you, especially when it isn't school business." She waved her wand and a tea service appeared.

"Well, I do have some formal business to discuss, Hermione, apart from the usual pleasure of visiting." Tonks dropped her teacup, but with a quick wave of her wand returned it, intact, to her hands.

Upon seeing the terror on Hermione's face, Remus spoke up to comfort her. "No, it isn't really bad news, Hermione, it's just some new information."

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, well, out with it!" she demanded of her friends, staring back and forth between them.

Tonks inhaled sharply before beginning. "Well, over a month ago, right after Sybill went mad in the Great Hall, a prophecy, unlabelled, appeared in the Department of Mysteries. We aren't flooded with them, but we're rather used to getting ones without definitive subjects, and since we can't see them if they aren't about us, we usually just have to suppress our curiosity."

Hermione looked puzzled. "If it's unlabelled then how do you know..."

"Well, it's labelled now," Tonks interrupted. "Someone went down to check on the prophecy collection and saw that a name appeared on it and the one that was originally there. Zoe Snape."

Hermione scoffed loudly. "Her name is NOT Snape."

"I know, Hermione, but the point is, well, it seems that the prophecy we saw wasn't the only one that was made about Zoe, so perhaps whoever made it is with the Death Eaters and was able to give them enough information so that they figured out who it meant." Remus sipped his tea, staring at Hermione over his cup.

"Unfortunately, we don't know who made the prophecy, and even more unfortunately, we can't know what it says without the person whom the prophecy is about," Tonks commented, disappointed that she didn't have more information to give.

"It may not sound like much, Hermione, but it's the best anyone's been able to get for weeks. I know you've been hoping for more." Remus frowned at Hermione's distressed expression.

They sat in silence for a few moments before Hermione spoke. "Are there a lot of Seers around?"

Remus stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Not really. It's sort of a dying art, isn't it? If you can call it an art. Sometimes it seems quite accidental."

"That may be," Hermione admitted, "but I know of someone else who lately has billed herself as a Seer."

Tonks laughed. "Certainly you aren't talking about Luna Lovegood! Hermione, I'm sorry, I know she's your friend, but she's mad!"

"We think Sybill is too, don't we?" Hermione looked into her cup thoughtfully. "It's worth a shot, isn't it?"

Remus pondered the idea for a moment. "It is possible. Do you know where she lives?"

Hermione nodded. "Yeah, I went to visit her not long after she married Colin Creevy."

Tonks looked around the room, considering their options. "Well, like you said, it's worth a shot, and I'd say the sooner we know either way, the better."

"Then let's go," Hermione insisted, and the three of them took off for the Disapparation point past the gates of the school. Once they got there, Hermione held both of their hands, and, with a pop, they appeared in front of a rather strange house which had been charmed to look like an old Victorian mansion.

Without waiting for a word from her companions, Hermione ran to the front door and knocked on it with urgency. After a moment, the door opened, and Luna stood before her, dressed in lilac robes that were about three sizes too big for her.

"Hermione, Remus, Nymphadora," Luna observed in her dreamy voice. "What an expected surprise. I knew you were coming, of course."

"May we come in?" Hermione asked, suddenly wondering if this had been the right thing to do.

"But of course. It's always so lovely to get visitors." She stepped aside and invited the trio in. "I take it that this is more than a social call?"

"I wish I could say you were wrong, Luna, but we are here on some rather important business." Hermione hesitated. "I assume you must know that my daughter, Zoe, was kidnapped last month by Death Eaters?"

Luna shook her head in agreement. "Yes, and it is quite dreadful. I am so sorry, Hermione. I wish I could do something to help, but the Inner Eye sees when it is ready."

"Thank you." Hermione smiled kindly. "Well, I think that you may be able to help. You see, she was taken shortly after two prophesies were made about her. One, Professor Trelawney made and we all witnessed ourselves, but the second is a bit of a mystery to us."

Luna thought for a moment. "Yes, the mysteries of the Inner Eye are many."

"Right," Hermione agreed with hesitation, looking at Remus and Tonks who were clearly trying to suppress laughter. "Well, we couldn't think of many other Seers around other than Sybill and, well, you. I suppose what I am trying to say is, have you made any predictions lately?"

"Oh, yes, of course, I make them often, just about every day. Why, yesterday I told Colin that today would bring visitors, and here you are." Her gaze drifted about the room.

"Yes, I see." Hermione shot warning looks at Remus and Tonks who were nearly doubled over with silent laughter. "You don't happen to keep track of these predictions, do you?"

"Naturally. Come; I will show them to you." She motioned for them to follow her to a cupboard in the sitting room from which she pulled a large, dusty book. Opening it, she flipped through the pages of neatly written purple script. "I do not look at this much, but it is charmed to record every time I have a vision. You see, that is where I predicted that Colin would get a hangnail, and there when I foresaw that Harry Potter's son would have dark hair."

Tonks rolled her eyes. "How about September? Where are your predictions from then?" she asked with a touch of frustration.

"Hmm, September..." Luna flipped forward several pages. "Well, that's very strange," she commented, almost to herself.

"What's strange, Luna?" Remus tried to look over her shoulder after wiping tears of laughter from his face.

"Well, I see that I made a prediction here around the first week of September, but I do not remember it, and I would have because that was the day Colin and I went to London to celebrate our anniversary." She pondered the page.

"Can I see that, please?" Hermione, growing agitated, snatched the book from Luna's arms. Looking for the date Tonks had told her the second prophecy appeared, she gasped.

"What is it, Hermione?" Remus gently took the book from the shocked witch. His eyes wide with wonder, he read the entry. "A child has been at Hogwarts with the power to unite two worlds in peace. Sprung from the love of a snake and a lion under the sign of the crab, she now comes under the eyes of her parents, one blind, one seeing, bound by their fates until both can agree. A child has been at Hogwarts with the power to resolve good and evil and unite two worlds in peace."

"Good Merlin," Tonks exclaimed. "Where did you say you were on this day, Luna?"

"Why, Colin and I spent the day in London. We were all around Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, to be truthful. It's strange, Colin never said anything to me about it..." She trailed off in contemplation.

"Was Colin ever away from you during the day?" Hermione's eyes demanded an answer.

"The only time I can think of is when I wandered off in Knockturn Alley. He's dreadfully frightened of it, of course..."

"Well, we hate to cut our visit short, Luna, but we've got to go." Hermione slammed the book shut and handed it back to her confused friend.

"I hope you found what you were looking for," Luna called after the trio as they ran for the door, quickly Disapparating away and back to Hogwarts.

At the gates, the three stood for a moment before Hermione spoke. "That prediction would probably be a bit more enlightening to your average Death Eater than the one we heard, wouldn't it be?"

Remus nodded. "I would say so. It also seems to solidify our theory that it is in fact Zoe. I don't really know of anyone else at Hogwarts with their parents there, one Slytherin, one Gryffindor. Who knows who could have heard Luna in Knockturn Alley."

"Well, I've got to run. We looked around Knockturn Alley a bit, but now I think we have reason to investigate it more carefully." Tonks put her hand on Hermione's arm. "Good thinking, kid," she exclaimed before Disapparating away.

"I expect we should go tell Minerva," Remus suggested, looking towards the castle.

"That's probably a very good idea," Hermione agreed, and they took off for the doors.

As they approached Minerva's office, they found the Headmistress already bursting out from behind the gargoyles. "Where have the two of you been?" she asked impatiently. "I have been looking everywhere for you!"

"Yes, we're sorry Minerva, but we paid a little visit to Luna Lovegood." Remus tried not to laugh at the combination of Minerva's fury and his feelings about the strange Seer.

"Luna? Why on earth would you do that?" Minerva's anger stopped and was replaced by amusement.

"Well, Tonks told us that another prophecy had been made around the time Sybill made hers about Zoe. We went to the only other alleged Seer we knew, and it turns out that, unbeknownst to Luna, she made a far more detailed prophecy that would certainly have tipped anyone off to the identity of the chosen one." Remus shook his head. "But worse than that, she made it in the middle of Knockturn Alley."

Minerva threw up her hands. "What on earth was she doing there?"

"We have no idea," Hermione finally spoke up, "but it gives Tonks at least some clue as to where to look for anyone who might have any information."

"You say it was more detailed. How detailed was it?" Minerva was shocked.

"Well, no names were given if that's what you mean, but it would have taken a fool not to figure it out, even if you didn't know Severus was the father. After hearing this, you would likely most certainly know." Hermione ground her foot into the floor.

"Minerva," Remus interrupted. "You said you were looking everywhere for us. Is anything wrong?"

"Oh!" Minerva was shaken from her thoughts. "No, everything is just fine. I've found Severus."

Hermione's head snapped up so fast she almost got whiplash. "Severus? Where?"

"Here," Minerva handed Hermione an empty Chocolate Frog box. "It's a portkey. It will take you straight to him."

Hermione looked at Minerva with some hesitation. "Have you spoken with him yet?"

Minerva shook her head. "No, I wanted to leave that to you, but be cautious. I have a feeling he won't be too cheerful when you get there. Not that he's ever cheerful, but you get the idea. Now, off with you."

Hermione steeled herself for the confrontation, gave a last look to Remus and Minerva as though asking them to wish her luck, and activated the portkey.


	14. Confessions

A/N: Great thanks go out to my beta, anogete. Also, I have to thank my readers and reviewers who have challenged me to make this a better story. On that note, I am putting this chapter up right away because I know the last two chapters were somewhat dissatisfying. I hope that this chapter goes some way in explaining some of the problems you have uncovered in this story. Thanks again for being such wonderful and committed readers!

Obligatory: Fun, not funds, is all that I have expected from playing around in JKR's world.

Hermione suddenly found herself in the middle of a dark, filthy room, looking down the business end of a wand, on the other end of which was a very inebriated Potions Master.

"You," he mumbled, keeping his wand raised.

Hermione ignored the threat and sat herself down on a moth-eaten sofa, the only furniture other than a parchment-covered table in the room. "Yes, it's me, Severus, and you can lower your wand, please."

"I should have known that meddling woman would find me eventually," he replied, sitting on the opposite side of the sofa, staggering a bit before he lowered himself to the cushions.

"You're drunk," she commented, looking around at the empty bottles of firewhisky littered around the room.

"Not nearly as drunk as I would like to be, Hermione," he commented darkly.

"I am not here to play games with you, Severus. You've been gone for weeks, drowning your sorrows apparently in drink, neglecting your position at Hogwarts, to say nothing of the fact that you've been neglecting your daughter." She glared at him as he settled into the sofa.

"Has she been found?" he asked with nearly casual curiosity.

"No, she hasn't," Hermione admitted quietly with a tear as she heard his disinterested tone. "Do you mean to tell me that you haven't cared at all to know where Zoe is?"

He thought for a moment, and his face softened. "How could you think that of me? Do you really think that I am that heartless? Do you really think I have just been sitting around here doing nothing all of this time?" He held Hermione's watery gaze with a blazing intensity in his own eyes. "I have been using every resource at my disposal to attempt to locate her with no success."

"Oh, Severus." Hermione lowered her head in shame. "Severus, I am so sorry for keeping the truth from you. I know you must hate me even more for that than you already did!" A tear slipped from her eye.

"I have never hated you, Hermione," he admitted, his tone warming considerably. "I suppose there was no reason for you to tell me."

"But there was! You had a right to know about her, even if you didn't care for me." More tears fell onto her face.

"That is the problem, though, I am afraid. I did and still do care for you. I just did not want to." Severus wasn't sure if it was the drink or his heart talking, but either way it no longer mattered.

"Then why did you leave me? Why did you never try to contact me?" Hermione moved closer to him and stared into his eyes as they turned to meet hers.

"I did not believe it possible that you could love me as I am, Hermione, and I do not deal well with rejection. I simply thought that after the moment had passed, you would walk away from me like everyone else has done. I could not bear that." He looked away from her again.

"I told you that night to read my thoughts, Severus. All you would have had to do was look into my mind and see that I had no intention of rejecting you." She reached for his hand, and he abruptly drew it back.

"It would have been worse for me to see your feelings!" he roared. "You gave yourself to me so completely and willingly. I had been with a couple of women before, but it was so different with you. You wanted me, and I wanted you. I was overwrought. I was scared."

"Has none of this changed now that you know what we share, Severus?" she asked softly.

"Changed? Of course it has changed! Now I am even more terrified! When you told me you loved me before I left Hogwarts, I realized that though I thought I could get you to stop having feelings for me by avoiding you and treating you coldly that you loved me still." His voice lowered again. "No one has ever loved me unconditionally like this before, Hermione. Accepted me as I am? Perhaps, but never loved."

Hermione went for his hand again, but this time he did not withdrawal it from her. "You make it sound like such a terrible thing."

"Perhaps it is not so scary for you Gryffindors, but for a Slytherin, it is positively horrifying." He flipped his hand over to hold hers tightly.

"You weren't so scared of it two years ago, if only for a few moments." She frowned, looking at their clasped hands.

"You have no idea how scared I was even then. You...you had never known anyone but me like that, and you chose me." Guilt washed over him more intensely than it had that fateful night.

"And I have known no one like that since." She gripped his hand more tightly.

"I have not either," he admitted. "I could not. I wanted to wipe myself clean of it all, but I felt too strongly for you. All I could do was try to convince myself that nothing would ever come of it."

"Albus told me that you love me," she commented quietly.

Severus laughed. "That meddling old fool. I should have known you would speak with his portrait eventually." He shook his head.

"So you do not?" She met his gaze with fear.

He reached for her face hesitantly with his free hand. "Of course I do, silly girl. If I did not, do you think this would have been so difficult for me?" He pulled his hand back abruptly from her cheek.

Hermione sighed. "If I could go back and change that night, Severus, I would not. I would not change a thing about it. Even knowing what I know now, even after how terribly you have treated me, I would still have given myself to you."

"I have no excuse for my recent behavior." Severus shook his head. "I do not believe you. You could save yourself a great deal of pain by changing it." He looked deep into her eyes. "You could still save yourself now by walking away from me and forgetting about me."

Hermione thought for a moment. "Listen to me. Maybe we cannot work this out now, but there are some things we have to face, things more important than the mess between us. Another prophecy was made about Zoe, one that left no doubt about her being the subject of the first. Worse, the second prophecy was made in Knockturn Alley where, no doubt, someone with something to gain from the information heard it. It's been weeks since she's been gone, and if anything worse happens to her, I don't know how I will bear it. I don't know how much longer I can pretend that everything is alright, and that I'm not falling to pieces more and more every day. Please come back with me, Severus. Come back to Hogwarts."

He laughed again. "Certainly no one will be happy to see me back there."

"I will be happy, Severus. You cannot stay here in this horrible place hiding from me or the world any longer, and I will not continue this discussion with you unless you come with me right now." She gripped his hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

He cocked his eyebrow at her. "And if I refuse to come with you?"

"Then we will both regret it for the rest of our lives. I can't say why, but I just know that we have to work together to find Zoe if we have any chance of saving her." She broke their eye-lock and looked into her lap.

He considered his options for several very long moments before nodding his head. "But promise me one thing first."

"Anything."

"Please give me one last chance to make up to you my unforgivable behavior. Even if there is no chance of us being together, let me prove to you that I am committed to bringing Zoe back to you unharmed." He looked away from her.

"I believe you, Severus. Now stand up and hold onto me. I am not going to risk losing any part of you, not even an eyebrow, by your Disapparating in this condition." She stood up, still holding on to his hand.

"If you insist." He stood before she Disapparated them away to the Hogwarts gates.

Hermione pulled out her wand and Disillusioned them both before leading him into the castle and towards her rooms. At the door, Hermione whispered the password and a confused portrait swung the door open. When they were safely within her sitting room, she held out her wand again and cast "Finite Incantatem," causing them both to reappear. Her wand still at the ready, she warded the front door to ensure that they would have no other visitors.

"I am going to go to my quarters and make myself more presentable, Hermione, but rest assured that I will return, for if I do not, I know you will tattle to Minerva about me, and I will be in even more trouble than I already am," he explained before she could raise another word in protest.

"Fine, but hurry back. I am not through with you yet," she reminded him with a scolding tone.

"I am certain of that." He looked back at her before grabbing a handful of Floo Powder and throwing it into the fireplace, calling, "Severus Snape's office" and disappearing into the flames.

Hermione's head was spinning with all of the emotions she was feeling, each more bewildering than the next. For some reason, knowing that Severus had been searching for Zoe and had now returned to her side allowed her to break down her facade of strength that she might be able to lean on him now in her time of sorrow.

She turned around and faced the wall behind which Zoe's room was hidden. With a look of determination, she waved her wand at it several times, reciting a number of complicated incantations at it before the door reappeared and clicked open.

Hermione moved inside of it and retrieved the photo album that documented Zoe's first year. For the first time in days, she felt anxiety gnawing at her stomach.

Half an hour after he had stepped into her fireplace, Severus reemerged from it. He had changed his robes, washed himself, and apparently taken a sober-up potion to remove the cobwebs of intoxication.

"I told you that I would come back," he said in his silkiest of voices.

"I knew that you would," Hermione replied, smiling. "Now, come, sit beside me." She indicated the empty half of the sofa next to her. "I want to show you something." She handed him the album full of moving portraits of their daughter.

He opened it carefully and looked sad as he gazed upon the photographs. "She has got your nose, thank Merlin."

Hermione laughed. "But she has got your eyes."

"Hard as it was for me to admit, I saw it the moment I looked at that picture last month. I am amazed that more people did not figure it out just by looking at her." He ran one of his long fingers over the smiling face of the pale child in a photograph.

"You would be amazed what people can't see when they don't want to." She tried to determine his expression as he looked through the book.

"That is certainly true." After coming to the end of the pictures, he closed the book and placed it on the table. "She is beautiful," he admitted. "I can only give you credit for that."

"Don't be daft, Severus. Her beauty has as much to do with you as it does me." She pulled out her wand and waved it over the table, causing a dinner for two to appear in front of them. "Now eat," she commanded.

"You are getting a bit too much like Minerva for my tastes, you know," he scolded as he dug into his meal. "Speaking of Minerva, who has she had teaching my classes? Not Slughorn, I hope."

"No, not Slughorn, but someone well qualified." She smirked with satisfaction at his confused face. "I have got more than one advanced degree."

He laughed. "You have been teaching my classes and yours at the same time?"

"No, Minerva has taught mine, as she tells me she herself is dreadful at Potions." She grinned at his smile of agreement. "I think the students will be quite distressed to have you back, to be honest, even the Slytherins."

"Nonsense, now that I have returned they can go back to learning the subtle art of Potion making instead of Merlin knows what you have been teaching them," he spat with irritation as he ate ravenously.

"I take offense to that, Severus. I will have you know that the classes have gone quite well. I think that even you would be pleased with the progress the students have made," she stated quite matter-of-factly.

"Perhaps," he admitted. "We shall see." He paused and let his eyes wander to the photo album again. "I am sorry that you have felt you had to do all of this while you were grieving."

"I suppose that I was too overwhelmed to do anything but pretend that everything was okay, even if it was far from it." Hermione turned back to her food with an exhausted sigh.

After they finished their meal in silence, Hermione waved her wand over the empty plates and they disappeared. They settled back into the couch, trying to decide what to say.

Finally, Severus spoke softly. "So, there has been no evidence of significance from the Aurors about the whereabouts of..." he thought briefly, "the whereabouts of our daughter?"

Hermione frowned. "No. As you know, the Ministry has been looking for several of the Death Eaters for quite some time. They have intensified their search for them, but wherever the culprits are, they are keeping themselves quite well hidden."

"That has also been my experience. I expect they will stay that way until they are ready to make their next move, whenever that will be." He took her hand in his own. "I am deeply regretful that I seemed unfeeling when you told me about her. I simply have no explanation."

She smiled at him kindly. "There is something I've been meaning to ask you, Severus, if I may."

"Of course, anything, if I am able to answer it." He looked into her eyes with hesitation.

"Well, if you were trying to rid your thoughts of me so persistently, why did you not give me much of a fight when I came to fetch you to teach? Certainly it would be difficult to forget me if you were forced to see me every day." She moved her thumb in circles around the knuckle of his first finger.

"Partially, it was because you were right and I did owe Minerva, but I suppose you could call it my masochistic streak. A test of my resolve, you might say. I figured that I could prove to myself that I felt nothing for you if I could be so close to you and see that there was nothing between us." His eyes searched hers. "As I am sure you have gathered, I was mistaken."

"Did you realize you were mistaken before or after you found out about Zoe?"

Severus laughed heartily. "Well before. Probably about five minutes after I arrived here. However, learning of Zoe and realizing she was in danger pushed me over the edge. I realized how wrong I had been, and I did the only thing I could think to do."

"You ran," she stated simply.

"Yes, I ran." He considered her for a moment. "I thought that perhaps I could find what the Death Eaters had done with Zoe, return her to you, and leave you both in peace."

"Oh, Severus." Hermione began to cry, though she still tried to hide her tears from him. "What am I going to do without her?"

"You are going to be strong, and I am going to do what I should have done after you told me. I am going to help you, if you will forgive me and let me."

"Getting her back is all that matters to me," she muttered. "After that, we can argue about who was at fault for all of this."

"I believe the answer to that is quite clear, so I will not engage you in that argument. I truly am sorry." He stood to leave.

"So what do we do now?" she asked him, not watching him as he moved towards her door.

"We do everything we can to find our daughter, Hermione, and believe me when I say that I am completely committed to that. Now get some sleep. I will see you at breakfast." With a flourish of his robes, he left her room, pulling the door shut behind him.

"I told you he loved you," Albus' voice teased from a portrait in the room, but just as soon as it sounded, he vanished.


	15. The Thaw

A/N: Much love to my amazing beta, anogete. Also, thanks to all of my lovely readers and reviewers. With your insights, I have really whipped this tale into shape!

Obligatory: Characters and such belong to JKR. I can only take responsibility for the silliness I have subjected them to here.

--

Sunday morning, Hermione headed to the Great Hall early, hoping to see Severus before too many more people arrived. However, when she got there, almost all of the staff, save Severus, was already there.

When Minerva saw her, she jumped up, nearly knocking her chair over. "Didn't you get him, Hermione?" Minerva tried to control her shock.

"She succeeded as I am sure you knew she would," came a silky voice from the door behind the head table. "Hello, Minerva."

"Severus!" Minerva gasped. "You have a lot of explaining to do, young man!" She waved her finger threateningly at him.

He sat down beside her as Hermione took her seat next to Remus. Severus' manner was one of boredom. "Pardon me, Minerva, but I have no wish to do any explaining at the present time."

Hermione tried to steal a glance at him, but he was making a great effort to keep his eyes away from her.

"We will deal with Severus later, Minerva. For now, let us remember that the students are watching." Remus motioned to the students slowly filing in for their breakfast, all shooting looks of terror at their recently-returned Potions professor.

"I take it you've not made much progress with him, Hermione," Tonks whispered past Remus.

"I thought I had," Hermione muttered into her teacup.

"Well, we cannot expect miracles, now, can we, ladies?" Remus teased, and Hermione blushed. He then lowered his voice. "At least tell me that you have made some sort of peace with him."

Hermione sighed at her breakfast. "It is sort of a long story, but I think that I have. He certainly wants to be involved in finding Zoe."

"He may be of some help. If we've got anyone who knows the mind of a dark wizard better than Mad-Eye Moody, it's Severus," Tonks mused aloud.

"He's already been trying to find whoever did this, but he couldn't. Perhaps he isn't as sharp with the dark magic stuff as you might think," Hermione admitted.

"That doesn't mean that he can't be of some assistance, Hermione. I think that Tonks is right," he looked at her lovingly, "as she always is, of course."

Tonks smiled with satisfaction. "Thank you for that, dear. You know I love it when you say that." She leaned over to kiss him. "Now, I don't want to push him, but if I could at least talk to him and see if he has any other ideas, it could be of great help."

Hermione looked down the table at Severus whose expression was rather strained as Minerva scolded him quietly. "I will never understand him. One minute he's berating me and treating me like garbage, and the next minute he is out looking for Zoe and telling me that he loves me. I know I shouldn't, but I believe that he does care. Yes, I know, he has a funny way of showing it, but I feel that we have to put aside our differences for Zoe's sake."

"Does that mean you're going to forgive him and go on like nothing bad every happened?" Remus looked at her questioningly.

"Not quite yet, I don't think. We've reached some kind of truce, but nothing is quite resolved yet." Hermione set her fork down. "I'm sorry, but I'm not very hungry, and I need some time alone. Perhaps I will see the two of you at dinner."

Tonks and Remus nodded and regarded her with concern as she exited the hall, sharing a brief but unreadable look with Severus before she turned to the doors.

Before she had a chance to make it to her door, she heard running footsteps behind her. Because her nerves were so sensitive, she whipped around with her wand raised before breathing a sigh of relief at seeing Harry striding towards her.

"Harry! You nearly scared me to death!" She put her wand away.

"Sorry, Hermione, but I just had to talk to you as soon as I could. There's something I have to tell you!" He slowed down to catch his breath.

"Is it about Zoe?" She looked at him hopefully.

"I think so," he gasped.

"You think? Okay, but first we need to get someone else. Come with me!" Harry sighed with exasperation as she took off with a run back to the Great Hall, but he mustered his strength and ran behind her. "I don't know how they let you be an Auror if you can't even keep up with a girl when running," Hermione teased as they slipped in through the back door behind the head table.

"If this castle didn't have that bloody charm on it, I could just Apparate around it, couldn't I? That's what I do the rest of the time everywhere else!" He grinned at her.

"Right. Hang on." She walked up behind Severus and leaned down to whisper in his ear. "Harry's here with some news, Severus."

Severus looked back at Harry with a mixed expression of hatred for the boy but also hope that he came with some useful news. He stood swiftly from the table and joined the friends in heading for the door. Tonks, upon seeing Harry, ran to join them as they moved into a secluded area of the hallway.

"So what is this news, Potter?" Severus crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at his nemesis.

"There's news, Harry? When?" Tonks looked sternly at her fellow Auror, concerned that she had been left out of the loop.

"Just five minutes ago, Tonks, honest. Well, we've found Draco Malfoy. He was lurking around Knockturn Alley. It seems that he had been using Polyjuice potion to appear as though he were someone else, but he must not have known how long he would be out and about because it wore off in the middle of the street."

"Draco," Severus spat out. "Have you gotten anything out of him?"

"Just a lot of cackling, really, but we're working on him. If he knows anything, we will figure it out." Harry looked at Hermione, whose eyes were wide with excitement.

"Nonsense. You will take me to him, and I will use Legilimency to get the information we require." Severus shot Harry a daring look.

"Kingsley would never allow that, Severus, and you know it. If we need to resort to Legilimency, one of the Aurors will do it." Tonks held her hand up to stop Severus as he prepared to interrupt her. "No ifs, ands, or buts, Severus. We have to do this the right way to avoid any unnecessary problems."

"But there's no better Legilimens than Severus, and I am sure that by this point Draco has become quite good at Occlumency." Hermione pleaded with her friends.

"I told you that we would do everything we could, and we are going to. If necessary, we will use Veritaserum on Malfoy, but I don't want either of you," Tonks pointed at Hermione and Severus, "doing anything to interfere. You're both quite emotional, and we need Draco alive and unharmed if he's to be any use to us."

Severus gritted his teeth. "Fine," he forced through his clenched mouth.

"Okay," Hermione conceded weekly.

"Good, then. Now, Harry and I have got to be off just after I say goodbye to Remus. Harry, give Minerva the short version. We'll come see the two of you if we get anything substantial. Remember, Draco could have nothing to do with Zoe's disappearance." Tonks and Harry swept back towards the door to the Great Hall.

"Hermione, are you alright?" Severus watched as Hermione's face turned a deathly shade of pale and she started wobbling towards him, about to pass out. "You must get a hold on yourself!" But it was no use. She fell directly into his outstretched arms as he chuckled. "I see you are going to force me to sweep you off your feet. Very well, then."

With one swift moment, he caught her legs with one arm, gripped her around her torso with the other, and made quickly for her rooms. "Lacewing flies," he snapped at the portrait guarding the door.

"Try again," the painting replied, annoyed.

"Of course, she changed it when she realized I knew what it was," he muttered silently. He thought for a moment, wishing Hermione would snap out of her brief coma. "Boomslang skin?" At his guess, the door clicked open. He chuckled to himself, remembering in the future to just start listing off the ingredients of Polyjuice potion to figure out the password to her rooms.

Securing the door with a number of protective wards, he carried Hermione to the sofa and considered what to do with her. Not wanting to let her go just yet, he sat down and cradled her in his arms, enjoying the scent of her hair as he pressed her head to his chest.

"Severus..." came her weak voice as she gripped his robes.

"We will never accomplish anything if you go around passing out every time there is some news," he scolded.

"Can I really help it that I was in a state? I had just started to believe that she was never coming back. I can't trust hope..."

He interrupted her. "Was it not you who told me that there is always hope, Hermione?" He reminded her softly. "Do not ever let yourself believe that she is not coming back because she is if I have anything to say about it."

She tore herself from him and perched herself securely in his lap. "I am so happy that you're here," she whispered, looking into his eyes.

"Well, I wish that I were not," he admitted. "I wish that I were at the Ministry to tear that Malfoy boy into pieces!" He looked away with anger.

She smiled. "You really do care for Zoe, don't you?"

His face softened. "Of course I do, Hermione. I have ever since I learned of her existence. I care for you both very much."

She pressed her forehead to his. "I am so exhausted, Severus. I have tried all of this time to be strong, to do my job, to be a good friend to everyone. I can't keep it up much longer. I have to have Zoe back."

"I hope you believe that I am sorry for adding to your pain. In my own misguided way, I thought that what I was doing was for the best for everyone." Severus sighed.

Hermione's body relaxed as his warm breath tickled her face. "I won't pretend to understand it or that it didn't hurt me very deeply. I can't pretend that it didn't happen. But, crazy as it will sound to my friends, it doesn't matter to me now. I can't keep being angry with you for hurting me when the pain of Zoe being in danger eclipses it like this. In time, we can worry about the rest."

Severus shifted uncomfortably, and gently moved Hermione off his lap. "I have been a fool, but you should not feel that you have to welcome me back with opened arms simply because I can own up to that."

She gazed at him with tearful eyes. "It isn't like that, really. I just need you here to keep me grounded and sane now. Zoe needs both of us together. You cannot leave us again."

"I am not leaving. I am only sorry that it took this travesty to make me see how wrong I had been." He furrowed his brow in anger, as much with himself as the situation.

"I do forgive you, Severus, whether you believe it or not. I must ask you, however, never to give up on us again." She fought back her tears.

"Never again," he promised, taking her body in both of his arms and reclining with her on the sofa, putting her back to his chest and holding her tightly against him. "Get some rest. You will need your strength to fight for your daughter's safety."

Hermione refused to let herself fall asleep as she laid there with him, and she could tell by the unsteadiness of his breathing that he was awake as well. There was too much going on for both of them to allow either to slip into unconsciousness. After about an hour of him holding her and both remaining still, she felt the hand that had been draped across her body smoothing back her hair.

"Are you awake?" he whispered.

"Yes," she replied quietly, turning to her other side to face him. "I can't sleep."

"I could get you a potion?" He abruptly slid around her and stood up to make to go to the fireplace.

"You could get me Zoe. That would be better than any potion." She stood and rushed towards him, placing a hand on his arm to still his progress.

"Hopefully, the Aurors will be able to get something useful out of Draco. If they do not, I will." He paced in front of the fire, concentration evident in his dark eyes.

"I think that everyone may be wrong about you, Severus. I think that you do have a heart." She smiled and looked away from him.

"It is an organ whose use is unfamiliar to me," he admitted, ceasing his pacing. "You have awakened it. Even when I was at my most cruel to you, it ached for you nonetheless. And now, it aches for our daughter."

"I know the feeling," she replied with feigned annoyance.

"You may use Legilimency if you do not believe me," he suggested, taking her hand.

"That you can admit it aloud is evidence enough of your sincerity, Severus Snape." She grasped his hand in both of hers.

"Then what would you say if I asked you to marry me?" His asked the question so quietly that it was barely audible.

Hermione heard it, however. "Marry you? Are you sure?" She let a laugh of incredulity escape her mouth.

"Do you not want to marry me?" He looked down at her with uncertainty.

"Gods, Severus, of course I do, you ridiculous man! Don't you think I want to be joined with you forever, to have a real family for Zoe to return to?" She gripped his hands more tightly. "I just want us to do it because we are certain we want to be together and not just doing it to smooth over everything."

"Of course," he muttered, waving his free hand as if in dismissal. "I was not thinking of that."

"Don't be that way," she warned. "It is difficult for me to go from thinking that you loathe my very existence to hearing you say you want to marry me in a few short days."

"I know," he responded with a sigh. "It just slipped out. I apologize for offending you."

"You haven't offended me. You have just surprised me quite a bit recently." She grinned at his bewildered expression. "It is a good idea. Zoe will need stability when she returns to us, and having two parents who love her and each other, even though they have their problems, will do her a world of good, I think."

Just as Severus was about to respond, they were startled by someone clearing her throat.

"Who is it?" Severus growled, his breathing heavy as his head snapped up to the portrait that had made the offending sound.

"There's a Mrs. Lupin and a Mr. Potter to see you, Miss," came the voice of the painting who guarded Hermione's quarters.

"They must have news about Draco!" Hermione exclaimed, waving her wand at the door, causing it to swing open. "Harry, Tonks!"

"Wotcher, Hermione, Severus," Tonks greeted with a nod at both of them.

"How are things going with Draco?" Hermione's eyes were wide with hope.

"Well, he wants to speak with Severus, so we've come to bring you to him." Harry looked back and forth between Severus and Hermione.

"I see who is really running the asylum at the Ministry. He may request to speak with me, but I may not request to speak with him." Severus' voice was dark and threatening.

"It's a bit more complicated than that, really. We administered Veritaserum and we attempted Legilimency on him, but we believe that he isn't working with the Death Eaters that took Zoe. Actually, we don't think that he's working with the Death Eaters at all." Harry shook his head.

Hermione was dumbstruck. "Well, if he hasn't been working with them, why has he been on the run?"

"We aren't really sure yet, but I think that he's been running from everyone. He's a bit paranoid right now, so Merlin knows what's happened to him." Tonks steadied herself after taking a step back and tripping over her feet.

"Whatever is going on, we haven't been able to get any useful answers out of him," Harry admitted sadly.

"Perhaps you were not asking the right questions," Severus suggested with a smirk.

"Well, he wants to speak with you, so now's your chance to find out," Harry snapped.

"What are we standing around here arguing for?" Hermione placed a calming hand on Severus' arm to get him to break his stare-down with Harry. "Let's get going!"

With one last look around at each other, the four witches and wizards walked briskly out of Hermione's room and towards the Hogwarts gates.


	16. The Family Way

A/N: Much love to my amazing beta, anogete. Also, thanks to all of my lovely readers and reviewers. With your insights, I have really whipped this tale into shape!

Obligatory: Characters and such belong to JKR. I can only take responsibility for the silliness I have subjected them to here.

--

Because it was the weekend, there were very few people at the Ministry. Draco was being held in an interrogation room near the Aurors' main office, magically bound to a chair with a number of defensive charms around the walls and door to keep him from escaping.

Hermione, Snape, Tonks, and Harry entered the interrogation room and positioned themselves in the four corners, the Aurors facing his back and Zoe's parents glaring him down.

Hermione was struck by Draco's deteriorated condition, and it reminded her of how Severus looked when he was first caught. His robes hung loosely around his shoulders, and all the features of his face stuck out more prominently as his skin stretched tightly around them. There were great dark circles under his eyes, and his almost white blond hair was long and dirty.

"Well, Malfoy, here he is, and he's listening." Harry looked back and forth between Severus and Draco.

Unable to contain himself any longer, Severus leapt forward and knelt on the ground before the shadow of a man who had once been his student. "Where is my daughter?" He stared into his eyes, searching his thoughts.

"I have already told Potter that I don't know," Draco spat at him, smiling with satisfaction. "But I may know something that can help."

"I don't have time for games," Severus warned.

"I am not playing games, Snape, and I am not using Occlumency against you. I do not know where the girl is." Draco's red eyes were narrowed but seemed honest.

"Then where have you been for all of these years if you were not with your father?" Severus backed off, but did not break eye contact with the younger wizard.

"The same place you were, on the run from everyone. No one would believe me if I told them I was not a Death Eater, and my father," he twisted his face with disgust at the word, "turned against me."

"You took orders from the Dark Lord to kill Albus Dumbledore and pledged your loyalty to the Death Eaters. That is not a sign of innocence, Draco." Severus broke his eye contact with Draco and cast a sideways glance at Hermione. She stood frozen as she watched the exchange.

"Things aren't always so black and white! The Dark Lord was going to punish my parents for my father's incompetence. I had no choice but to try to spare them. Unfortunately, my father did not see it that way." Draco dropped his head back with what seemed like despair.

"How do we know that these are not simply your histrionics? You turn back and forth between allegiances. How are we to believe that you are not going to turn on us now?" Severus lowered his voice.

"Of course you have no reason to trust me, Snape, but perhaps you will believe a little Slytherin reasoning. I have very little interest in saving the Mudblood's child..."

"You will not speak of my daughter that way," Severus shouted, causing everyone in the room, even Draco, to look up with alarm.

"Sorry, sir. As I was saying, I do not have much interest in saving any children, but from what I have heard, if my father and his friends succeed with her, they will have a great weapon, and once they gain power they will have no problem hunting me down and killing me." His tone was steady and calm.

"How is it that you know so much about the child and your father's plans for her if you have not been with the Death Eaters?" Severus stared again into Draco's eyes.

"I have kept my ears open for information about everything that has been going on, and there are still some channels to my father's followers I can access."

"So, the Death Eaters are your father's followers now?" Severus scoffed with disbelief.

"Yes, following the Dark Lord was always more about power than ideology for my father. I, unfortunately, do not fit into his plans, so I plan on destroying him before he has a chance to kill me!" Draco thought for a moment. "You haven't much time if you want me to help you."

"We have not got much time before what?" Severus narrowed his gaze at Draco.

"On Halloween they plan to bind the girl to them for life. It is a time of high magic, and they will use it to see that she remains on their side. I do not know where they plan on performing the ceremony, but no one will be safe if they succeed, least of all me and certainly none of you." Draco shot a pointed look behind him at Harry.

"Severus," Hermione interrupted quietly. "What is this binding? What will happen to her?"

"Suffice it to say it will not be good, Hermione. If this is true, we really do not have much time to find her before irreversible damage is done." He regarded Draco for a moment. "And you swear that you have no idea where this will take place?"

Draco laughed heartily. "I would swear on my mother's head, but under the current circumstances, I am sure you would not believe me. However, I will swear on my own head, since at this point that is the only head I am concerned with."

"I find this difficult to say, Draco, but..." Severus stuffed his hands in the pockets of his robes.

"Don't thank me for being a Malfoy, Severus. I am not here to embrace the light, and I know I will not escape Azkaban. You tried to keep me from carrying out the Dark Lord's orders many years ago, and it is probably the only reason I am alive now, so let us consider our debts repaid. I only hope that you can stop my horrible father in time." He smirked. "Perhaps you can lend me your lady friend to get me out of prison?"

Severus sneered at him. "Do not hold your breath, Mr. Malfoy. I am sure that your help will be considered in your sentencing, however."

Hermione, Severus, Tonks, and Harry filed out of the room silently, tears evident in Hermione's eyes.

"Severus, you know that I hate to ask you this, but were you ever a part of, well..." Tonks trailed off with embarrassment.

"You want to know if I was ever involved with dark rituals during my time as a Death Eater, Nymphadora?" His words were addressed to Tonks, but his eyes were locked on Hermione.

"Well, yes." Tonks put her hands on her hips.

"I had occasion to go to quite a few, though we were never permitted to know where exactly they were taking place. I can tell you that for such an important ceremony on such a significant day, it is likely to occur in a place of great dark magic." He reached for Hermione's hand as her gaze moved frantically between her three companions.

"How many such places are there?" Harry asked, looking about the hallway as though counting to himself.

"I can think of a few because we've searched them when looking for renegade Death Eaters. I'll contact Mad-Eye and see if I can get him out looking at other potential spots. Our only chance is to keep them all under heavy surveillance until Halloween." Tonks considered the distressed Hermione.

"Wait a moment. Let us assume for a moment that everything about the prophecy is true and that everyone has interpreted it the same way. Albus, well, Albus' painting, told me that Zoe's power would come from being trained by both me and Severus in all kinds of magic..."

Severus held up his hand to stop her. "Albus said that I am to train her in dark magic?" He stroked his chin.

"Yes, that is why we both had to acknowledge her, so that we could train her together. That's what Albus said anyway..." She hesitated at Severus' frightened expression.

"What are you thinking, Severus?" Tonks looked back and forth between the bewildered parents.

"Only that Zoe has only been exposed to Hermione's magic thus far. She hasn't ever really been close enough to me to have any connection to me. I am not entirely sure at this point of the true meaning of the prophecy, but either she will be unable to fulfill her destiny because I have not exposed her to my knowledge of dark magic, or a binding to another dark wizard would make her unalterably dark." He gripped Hermione's hand more tightly. "But either way, we cannot allow it to happen. If she fails to absorb their power, they will kill her. If she does not fail, we will never get her back."

"This is all my fault!" Hermione sobbed and threw herself into Severus' arms. "I should have told you! If I had, then our power would have protected her. We could have protected her!"

Severus wrapped his arms around her and spoke in a low, soothing voice. "There is no point in second guessing ourselves now, Hermione. You did what you thought was right, and I cannot say if telling me would have made Lucius any less determined to take her. In fact, she may have been in greater danger of death if they thought they could not turn her to their side. Shh." He kissed her head.

"Well, we haven't got a lot of time, so Harry and I are going to start investigating anywhere and everywhere that a place of dark magic could be. If we leave, will you both promise to return to Hogwarts immediately?" Tonks looked sternly at Hermione and Severus.

"Yes, but there is something we have to do first. Is there a Wizard of the Peace on duty on the weekends?" Hermione looked up at Severus.

"Of course, but why, Hermione?" Harry glanced back and forth between them.

"I just need to see one." She glared at Harry with a look that said that she meant business. "Well, what are you waiting for? Go catch some dark wizards like you're supposed to!" At her urging, they turned and ran away.

She looked up at Severus with uncertainty, and he regarded her with mock suspicion. "What are you up to, Hermione?"

"You said you wanted to make me your wife, didn't you?" She took both of his hands in hers.

"Of course I did, but you deserve more than some rushed ceremony in this awful place." He spoke softly as he avoided her eyes. "You deserve a proper wedding after you have had time to think it over thoroughly."

"And when we get Zoe back, we will have all the time in the world to work out our problems. But if anything happens to her, if she should die..."

He held his finger to her lips to stop her. "Do not say that. Do not even think it!"

"I know, Severus. I am trying to be hopeful, but hear me out. If she should die, I want her to die a Snape. I want everyone to know that she is your daughter and that I am your wife, and that we will stand together as a family no matter what happens." Her expression pleaded with him silently.

He thought for a moment. "Are you sure that this is what you want?"

Hermione smiled. "I don't need some fancy ceremony, Severus, I just need you." She grabbed his hand and led him to the elevator to sign the paperwork that would formally bring them together in the battle for their daughter.

When they returned to Hogwarts, they quickly informed Minerva of all that had gone on, including their conversation with Draco and the fact that they had now been quietly married.

Severus and Hermione walked in silence to Hermione's rooms. When they got there, she opened the door, and they looked at each other with hesitation.

"What do we do now?" Hermione asked, fingering the hem of her sleeve.

"We aren't going to do anything. I am going to get you a Sleeping Draught, and you are going to get some rest." He looked at her with a stern expression before leading her inside and securing the door.

Hermione sat down and sighed. "I can't sleep knowing the danger Zoe is in."

"You can, and you will. I am going to investigate places where Lucius might be, and I am also going to tell Minerva that she needs to continue teaching your classes for the time being."

"You can't do that! What will I do in the meantime? I will go crazy just sitting around not doing anything!" Hermione stood from her seat and started pacing.

"You are emotionally and physically exhausted, my dear, and it is time you let others help you. You are a mother whose child is in danger, and no one expects you to keep going around as though nothing has happened." He placed his hands on her shoulders to still her. "I am not trying to order you around. I am trying to help you. Please, let me."

She looked up at him with her eyes wide and wet with tears. "I know, Severus. I suppose I've been on my own for so long that I've forgotten how to do it. I'm sorry." She looked down again. "I don't mean to lay all the blame at your feet."

"It is justly placed. Now, get ready for bed." He reached out and placed his finger under her chin, lifting up her face to look at him. "Hermione, I..." He looked away.

She smiled. "I know. I love you, too."


	17. All Souls Night

A/N: Another round of applause goes out to my dear beta, anogete. Also, to my wonderful readers and reviewers, I send the warmest thanks for your patience and help with this story.

Obligatory: All of this belongs to JKR. I just borrow her world occasionally to have a bit of fun.

--

The students and some of the staff were somewhat surprised to learn that Hermione and Severus were married. The students took the news the hardest when they learned that she would not be returning to teaching just yet, and rumors that Hermione was being kept under some spell in the dungeons were whispered in the halls from time to time.

Hermione and Severus were settling in to their new life together as harmoniously as could be expected under the circumstances. They didn't fight often, but when they did it was best to stay out of the way as wands were likely to be involved. Once, when Minerva walked in on them arguing about something ridiculous or other in Snape's classroom, she left in tears of laughter at how they had used their wands to throw jars of various disgusting potion ingredients around. She was reminded of the fight she had witnessed between them at the beginning of the school year, and believed as much then as she did now that they were destined to be together.

They had moved into Hermione's rooms after one such battle over living arrangements, Severus insisting that he needed to be near his classroom and Hermione insisting that there was no reason to have Zoe return to an unfamiliar room. Besides, she had commented, her rooms were bigger and far cozier, and were already prepared for what they hoped was their daughter's imminent return.

The closer it got to Halloween, the more intense their battles with each other became. At that point, they were not really fighting over the surface topics of their arguments; they were really expressing their impatience with the situation. They knew that there was nothing to do but wait and hope that the Aurors and the Order had all of the possible concentrations of dark magic covered and that they could effectively communicate with everyone available to find how to get to the location where Zoe was being kept.

They both slept in Hermione's bed together, but neither ever made a move to consummate their marriage. Though they loved each other, they rarely spoke of their relationship or what was going to happen between them. All they could think about was trying to maintain the delicate peace they had forged and getting Zoe home.

The morning of Halloween, Severus and Hermione found themselves both awake early and unable to sleep. When he realized his wife was awake, Severus pulled her body towards his own and stroked her hair comfortingly. "I take it you have found sleep as elusive as I have," he commented quietly.

Hermione laughed a little. "Oh, Severus, I am so scared. I feel so helpless, like I should be out there doing something."

"What would you do? There are witches and wizards stationed at every possible locus of dark magic Lucius and Company could possibly be." He turned her towards him and looked in her eyes. "You cannot put yourself in danger. I do not know what I would do if I lost you both."

"You aren't going to lose me, Severus, but I just have this feeling that we have to go, we have to be there when they find her. Don't ask me to explain it, but the prophecy, the work we're meant to do together to train her... we are just as much a part of this as Zoe is. Don't you see?"

He pondered her words. "Do not take offense to this, but I have confidence that I could take care of myself if I were there if they find her, but I think that your emotions may get in the way. You could endanger us all if you try to do something rash."

Hermione looked down. "I am not a child anymore. I am a grown witch, a professor, and apparently the mother of the savior of our world. Don't you think that I am smart enough not to endanger anyone, least of all my husband and my daughter?"

"You are right, of course, but I do not think that your little Auror friends," he sneered, thinking of Harry, "would allow you to go, and if we do not know where they are looking, how will we know if they find them?"

"You have got an Invisibility Cloak, haven't you?" She raised her eyebrow at him.

"How did you know that? I have never told anyone..."

She laughed. "Well, I didn't know for certain, but you've been a spy for so long and you have all sorts of other strange things, so I thought that you must certainly have an Invisibility Cloak. Now you've confirmed it for me."

He smirked at her, trying but failing to act annoyed. "You are insufferable, wife."

"Thank you, husband. As I was saying, you've got an Invisibility Cloak, so all we have to do is follow someone, preferably someone who isn't Mad-Eye because he can see through them, to one of the possible locations, and if they are called to the real place, then we'll just go with them, won't we?" She rolled over on her back, absorbed in her scheme.

"For a grown witch and a professor, sometimes you behave like you are running about causing trouble with Potter and Weasley again." He propped himself up on his elbow and studied her.

"Admit it, you think that it's a good idea." She turned to look at him as he considered her plan.

"It is true, the idea is starting to grow on me, reckless and flawed as it is." He laughed at her annoyed face. "Reckless, flawed, but probably the only option we have got. It is just a pity we never bothered to become Animagi."

"Alright, so we're agreed that tonight, after dinner we will slip out under the guise of keeping vigil for Zoe, and we'll come back here, get your cloak, and follow Tonks out." Hermione stared at the ceiling.

"And how will we know to where she is Disapparating, my dear?" He turned her face to look at him.

"Simple. We'll just ask her." She smiled.

"And you think that she is just going to tell us?" He buried his head into her hair, laughing. "You certainly are mad."

"I am not mad. We have sworn up and down that we aren't going, and we're concerned, so I think that she and Remus will just tell us. Trust me. They know how I feel about Zoe, and they will want to calm my anxiety." She looked at him seriously.

"I still think that you are mad, but we will give it a try." He bent down to brush a rare kiss across her forehead.

"Thank you, Severus. You know that I would most certainly go mad if I had to stay here and stare at the clock." She smiled at him gratefully.

"As would I, Hermione. As would I."

They made their way to breakfast quickly, hoping that they may see Tonks before she went out on patrol. They were crestfallen, however, to learn that Tonks had left in the middle of the night, determined to begin her surveillance as soon as possible.

"You two look rather more disappointed than I would expect that Tonks isn't here. It looks a bit suspicious." Remus smiled at his friends knowingly.

"We were just, well, we wondered..." Hermione had known there was a possibility that Tonks wouldn't be there, but now Remus seemed to be on to them.

"It's alright, Hermione. Tonks left this for you." He held out a piece of crumpled parchment to his friend.

She read it allowed. "Dear Hermione and Severus: I may not have Dumbledore's brains, but I know that the two of you will not rest until you are along to help us look for Zoe, and since you are both Order members and Hermione's got an Order of Merlin, First Class, I suppose there isn't really any reason to keep you from the mission. I must warn you, however, that we expect you to look after yourselves and not get in the way if things get messy. Anyway, we have a pretty good idea about where the revel will occur, as there has been a lot of activity near it. Come meet us whenever you can at a certain home in Yorkshire. I think that Severus will know the place. Constant vigilance! Love, Tonks."

Severus scowled. "The Malfoy Estate."

Hermione looked at him with shock. "Lucius Malfoy is going to gather all of his old friends together in his own house? Isn't that a bit bold?"

Severus shrugged and stroked his chin. "Not if they believe they have nothing to lose. It has likely been searched over and over again by the Ministry, so after all of these years they would figure it was safe. They are hiding in plain sight."

"Thank you so much for this, Remus," Hermione smiled at her friend.

Remus laughed. "Tonks and I just figured that you would go no matter what we told you, and we would rather you knew where to go instead of carrying out whatever scheme you were no doubt planning. Besides, if it were me and my child were about to be bound to Lucius Malfoy for life, I would want to be there to hex the bloody arsehole into the next millennium."

"I do not know if hexes will be enough in this case," Severus muttered darkly.

"No Unforgivable Curses, Severus, please." Hermione patted his hand. "We're going to save Zoe, not kill anyone. Do you promise?"

He thought for a moment, but eventually gave in. "Because it is important to you, I promise."

"I think that is wise, Severus," Remus nodded in agreement. "Minerva and I are going as well, so there will be more than enough people there to see that no one gets away this time."

Hermione drained her teacup. "If I don't go and find something to do to distract myself, I think I'm going to go mad thinking about all of this. I'll see you both at lunch." With a quick smile and nod to Remus and Severus, she took off with no particular direction in mind.

The minutes and hours passed slowly, and Hermione found that, try as she did, she couldn't make herself do anything.

Sitting in the cold wind on the Quidditch pitch, her thoughts turned to the evening ahead of her. In her heart, she could feel that her daughter was still alive. Her stomach boiled with fear and anger, her heart told her to be strong, and the rationalizations of her brain kept a delicate balance between the two.

She was deeply frustrated, and she took that frustration out on the path she paced in front of her fireplace. She wondered if Severus had been taking out his frustration on his classes by taking points away from everyone for small offenses, but a stroll by the house hourglasses assured her that, if he was taking points, it was not nearly as drastic as it had been at the beginning of the year.

They had resolved to leave as soon as the Halloween feast was over, since they did not want to arouse the students' curiosities after seeing four of their professors leaving the grounds at the same time.

Hermione could hardly touch anything on her plate at dinner, though the mountains of food were quite tempting. Try as she might, she couldn't stop thinking about all of the possibilities for the evening ahead. She and Severus would share worried glances, but they tried not to talk about it for fear of erupting into an argument in the middle of the Great Hall.

Hermione was finally shaken from her reverie by the sound of Minerva addressing the students. "Attention everyone. I hope that you have enjoyed the feast and have had your appetites sufficiently filled. Now, I must ask all the Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl to see that everyone is safely in their houses and that they remain there for the rest of the evening until they are told otherwise by their Head of House. Thank you for your cooperation, and have a happy Halloween." She waved her hands, cleaning off the tables and sending the confused students to their houses. Their curfew had not come yet, so they were concerned to be locked into their common rooms so early in the evening, but all they did was mutter to one another as they were shooed out by the prefects.

All of the faculty remained in the Great Hall until it was emptied.

"I want everyone who is remaining behind to keep an eye on the corridors to make sure that no one leaves their houses. Severus, Hermione, Remus, and I are joining the Aurors and the Order at the Malfoy Estate in the hopes of retrieving Zoe. However, I am concerned about what may happen if we fail, or even if we succeed if there is a possibility for retribution."

"Of course, Minerva," Flitwick affirmed, looking sadly at the anxious Hermione and Severus. "Don't worry about us. We've got it all under control!"

"I'll be thinking about yer, Hermione. We'll be waitin' for yer when you get back." Hagrid looked at Hermione with his tearful, beady eyes.

"Thank you, Hagrid. Now let's get going before I explode!" Hermione led the charge as all of the professors left the hall.

When they Apparated to a spot out of view of the Malfoy Estate, they found Aurors and Order members skulking around, moving into strategic positions that would allow them to move onto the grounds quickly and efficiently.

Harry spotted Hermione and ran quietly towards her. "Hey, Hermione, listen, this is definitely where it's going to be, but we haven't seen any signs of Zoe yet. We think that they will bring her out last, but they seem to be gathering. We can't really tell who is here because they've all got masks on, but there are at least twenty people milling around."

Severus leaned in to listen. "Have you seen Lucius?"

"No, not yet, but he's got to be around here somewhere. They haven't got a lot of people patrolling the grounds, so he must not be too concerned that we know they're here, but I reckon he'll show up soon." Harry looked at an older Auror who was motioning towards him. "I've got to run. Keep track of each other, alright?"

"I do not intend for Hermione to get hurt, Potter," Severus growled, casting an annoyed look at Harry.

Harry nodded and walked off, casting glances behind him at Hermione and Severus as he left.

"Hermione, there is a field on the other side of the mansion that I believe fits the bill of a location for a dark revel. If we want to be there when Zoe appears, I think that may be the best place to go." Severus grasped her arm.

"Is it very far away?" she asked as they began walking.

"No, it is not, but there are not a lot of hiding places there. It will be difficult to get close and still remain out of sight."

She smiled and pulled a large piece of shimmery fabric from the pocket of her robes. "Good thing I thought ahead, then." She smiled at his surprised face as she produced his Invisibility Cloak.

"I might have known you would locate that. I suppose I should be grateful that you are so sneaky." He grinned as they looked around for someone watching and then slipped the cloak around them both as they took off for the field.

When they arrived at the clearing Severus had indicated, they were relieved to spot Tonks, Minerva, the Weasleys, and a number of other people hiding out in the trees, but they did not say anything, not wanting to attract attention to themselves.

As the night grew on, and Severus and Hermione had settled onto a moderately concealed patch of grass, everyone grew increasingly still as they saw people in dark robes gathering around the field in a circle. They searched for Zoe or some indication of who was among the dark witches and wizards, but there were no discernible clues.

"Hermione, look," Severus breathed, pulling her close to him and pointing at a man all in black who was walking through the crowd. He held a small bundle in his arms.

Hermione looked behind them to see that the trees were thick with Aurors and Order members, all waiting for the appropriate time to make their move.

The man with the bundle pulled back his hood to reveal the head of Lucius Malfoy, his eyes glittering and terrifying, his hair the same white blond as his son's and halfway down his back.

"Friends," Lucius announced. "The time has come for us to fulfill our destiny and retake the power that is rightfully ours!" He threw back the dark cloth in his arms to reveal a very distressed Zoe, struggling in his arms.

Hermione inhaled sharply, holding her hand over her mouth. "What are they waiting for?" she whispered, looking at the trees behind her.

Severus moved his arm from around her shoulders and placed it over the hand on her mouth to encourage her to be quiet.

Lucius spoke again. "After tonight, we will have reclaimed the future with this," he motioned to the girl in his arms, "source of great magic. Nothing will be able to stop us this time!" With that, he set her down on a table in the middle of the circle and held his hands over her.

Before anyone could realize what had happened, dozens of pops of Apparation sounded around the perimeter of the circle, and flashes of light went in every direction as the Order and a number of Aurors battled the Death Eaters surrounding Lucius.

Lucius looked up and roared with anger. "You will not succeed!" He cackled as he picked up Zoe and held her over his head.

Battle raged around him, but since the Death Eaters were vastly outnumbered, they were falling fast.

Hermione and Severus moved forward, still under the Invisibility Cloak, advancing on Lucius but afraid to make any sudden moves that would endanger Zoe's life.

As if in slow motion, Lucius lowered the child back into his arms and withdrew a knife from his robes, lowering it threateningly to Zoe's tiny hand, preparing to draw blood to begin the binding.

Hermione tore back the Invisibility Cloak to reveal herself and Severus, and they ran even faster towards Lucius and Zoe.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucius saw them coming at him and began cackling. "Oh, it is so lovely for you and the Mudblood to join us, Severus. I was just starting to think that you didn't care about the fate of the girl."

"You will not get away with this, Lucius," Severus growled, holding up his wand, unmoved by the chaos around him.

"Oh but I will, my old friend. You see, enough people believe in my cause that, once I have obtained the child's power, I will be unstoppable. Yes, plenty of people are prepared to follow me. After all, I was able to get the prophecy, was I not? I was able to figure out who the girl was, was I not? You cannot even trust the children in your own school, Severus. How can any of you expect to fight us and succeed?" He made to press the blade into Zoe's hand and she cried louder.

"Accio athame!" Hermione yelled, causing the blade to fly towards her.

Lucius laughed again. "Leave it to a Mudblood to come to an Unforgivable party with summoning charms."

"Lucius," Severus yelled as he gripped Hermione's arm. "You will not hurt our daughter!"

Suddenly, Zoe disappeared from Lucius' arms. "What have you done with her?" Hermione held her wand up threateningly at Lucius.

"Hermione," Severus whispered. "She's here."

"What do you mean..." she whipped towards him to see that Zoe was smiling and babbling safely in her father's arms. "How did you get her?"

"I do not know." Severus looked up at Lucius, now cornered by Harry and Ron. "It was like she just Apparated into my arms."

"Oh, Severus..." She trailed off in happy tears and put her hand to Zoe's cheek and the other on Severus' arm.

A soft white flow seemed to surround the entire family, seemingly emanating from Zoe herself. Hermione looked adoringly between Severus and Zoe before tightening her grip on them both and Apparating them away to the Hogwarts gates.

"I feel kind of bad leaving them there," Hermione yelled as they ran at full speed to the castle.

"I would not feel overly bad, darling. We were all there to get Zoe, and now we have her," he yelled back through heavy breaths as he tried to keep up with his wife. "Besides," he said, panting as they reached the door, "I believe that the odds were on our side. There were quite a few more of us than Death Eaters."

"Who's there?" Came Flitwick's voice from around a corridor as they moved quickly to their rooms.

"It's just us," Hermione called as Flitwick rounded the corner.

"You've found her!" The small Charms professor rushed towards them, his eyes full of relief. "Is everyone else alright?"

"We're not really sure but we think so. We sort of made a run for it once we got Zoe," Hermione admitted with a touch of regret for not making sure that all of her friends were alright before leaving.

"Well, I am sure that they are fine. Well, go on, take your daughter home!" Flitwick motioned them down the hall as he trotted away.

"I think that is an excellent idea," Severus stated, smiling at Zoe.

They entered their rooms and secured the door behind them, warning the painting that they were not to be disturbed. Severus could hardly tear his eyes away from the girl in his arms who was looking at him with her dark, familiar eyes.

"Hermione, she is absolutely..." He trailed off, not used to the overwhelming emotions that filled him as he got his first real look at his daughter.

"Do you see now, Severus? Don't you see that we were meant to be together and that there is no running away from it?" She smiled as Zoe wrapped her chubby hand around her finger.

Severus laughed. "I have never much believed in fate, but to know that we have been brought together like this to have a child who can bring peace and who has such great power, a power blessed by a force I do not understand... it is almost unbelievable that the fates should choose me for this path."

Just then, Zoe looked between the two of them, and spoke. "Mum, Dad!" She smiled and waved her tiny hands at both of them.

"Oh, Severus, she's never talked before." Hermione breathed deeply. "I always thought it was strange that she hadn't yet, but..."

"I think perhaps she was waiting until she could say what she wanted to say." Severus looked with amazement at his child before returning her to Hermione's arms. "I should go and leave you two to catch up."

Hermione looked at Zoe but spoke sadly to Severus. "Don't you want to catch up with her as well? After all, you've never seen her before."

"I know, but this is your time now. You deserve some peace." He lingered between the sofa and the door, not sure which path to take.

"Severus, ever since Zoe was born, you have been with me, even if you weren't here. I could see you every time I looked into Zoe's eyes. Even at your most horrible, I would look at her and see what we had for far too brief a time, far too long ago." She clutched the drowsy Zoe to her chest and looked up at Severus. "Perhaps I will never understand your peculiar coping mechanisms, and I will certainly never like them, but now that you see the power and the love of this rather strange family, can you really hide from it anymore? Can you keep yourself cloaked in the same excuse you've used since birth to distance yourself from emotions and relationships? I may not be a Legilimens, but I know discomfort and anxiety when I see it, even in you. Perhaps especially in you. I know that you are trying, even now, to run away and keep anyone from knowing that you really care."

She stood and thrust Zoe back into Severus' arms. "You let your guard down once with me, and I gave you something that night that I had never cared to give anyone else. In turn, you gave me Zoe, and she has been the most precious gift for which anyone could ever ask. Tonight, and tonight only, I offer you the chance to make everything right between us. If you will be a man, face your responsibilities, and pledge to stay by our sides for the rest of our lives, then we will make this all official and be the family we made that night in London. If you decide to stay in the shadows and lament your feelings in solitude, I will respect that, but we will have the marriage annulled. I simply will not put Zoe through any more trauma or heartache waiting for you to make up your mind. I cannot wait any longer for you to decide whether or not love is something you can bear."

Hermione's challenge hung between them in stillness for a few moments as Severus looked back and forth between the child in his arms and the witch before him, a witch he had tried not to love for so long.

Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke. "I thought you mad in London for giving me your innocence. I thought you mad for fighting for my freedom and getting close to me. I convinced myself that, if I left you alone, you would come to your senses. With each letter you sent me, I realized more and more that, if it was madness, it was an honest madness that you were not likely to cast aside. I wanted to believe in it, to let go of my anger and bitterness and accept it. By the time I faced you again, I had steeled myself against it so much that I had a difficult time accepting that you still wanted me. I knew I was hurting you, I knew that it was unforgivable, but I thought it would make you come to your senses and realize that I am not the good man you thought me to be."

"You are a good man, Severus," she interjected.

"I do not know what it would mean to be a good man, but, knowing what I know now, if you say it, I believe you. Seeing this child, seeing you both together... I could not run, even if I wanted to. You gave me two gifts that night. You gave me your innocence, yes, but you gave me Zoe, my redemption. You gave me the chance to begin a new life." He took a deep breath. "Perhaps I was not sure if I wanted it at first, but I am now. It has already been too long of a life without happiness for me."

As they stared each other down, Zoe snored lightly in her father's arms. The sound caused Hermione to look down at her daughter. "Then let us put Zoe to bed," she suggested evenly.

In silence, they moved into Zoe's room. Severus watched in amazement as Hermione stripped away the clothes the girl had been wearing, cleaned her up, and redressed her in fresh garments. Zoe was never disturbed from her slumber, and, with a kiss from her mother and her father, she was settled back into her crib.

Hermione and Severus stood and watched Zoe sleep for quite some time. Hermione's eyes dripped with tears, and Severus snaked his arm about her waist, feeling a contentment he had not known for many long years.

Finally, Hermione wiped the stray tears from her face and led Severus into their bedroom. They stood, just inches apart, by the foot of her bed, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

"Are you certain about this, Hermione?" Severus asked, feeling suddenly unsure of himself.

"You are a tiresome man sometimes, Severus Snape." She pressed herself against him and stared into his eyes. "This is the part where you're supposed to kiss me."

With a sigh of relief, he reached down and swept Hermione into his arms, his eyes never leaving hers as he placed her gently on the middle of the bed. Carefully, he moved over her and brushed his lips against hers as if testing them.

The response was almost instantaneous. Hermione claimed his mouth eagerly, sliding her hands up his back and coming to rest on either side of his face. After several long minutes, Severus pulled away, just inches from her face, and stared into her eyes.

"I suppose you must be right that I am a good man, for only a good man could deserve a woman such as you," he admitted quietly.

"I have to admit, I like your reasoning," she quipped with a grin. "However, I'm not particularly interested in rationalizing the thing to death during the consummation of our marriage."

With a smirk, Severus returned his lips to Hermione's. They kissed languidly for many moments, each losing themselves in each other. Severus ran one hand around Hermione's body and Hermione tangled her fingers in his hair. Pulling away briefly, he pulled them both up to a seated position and stroked her cheek with a long finger, breathing into her mouth. He glided his finger down her throat to the clasp on her outer robes and unhooked it, casting them aside before shrugging out of his own billowing garment.

Stealing longing glances into each other's eyes, they removed all their garments until they sat before each other completely naked. When the last fabric had been tossed aside, they grabbed one another by their faces and clashed together in another long, passionate kiss. Severus pressed Hermione down on the bed and nudged her legs open with his knee, kneeling between them.

"I have waited so long for this moment, Severus." Hermione looked up at him with tears of joy in her eyes.

"I am so sorry that I left you, Hermione. I swear on our daughter's life that I will never do it again. I am prepared to face our feelings for one another and trust in them." He leaned down and kissed her lips softly.

"I believe you." She pulled him down to her and ran her hands along his slim torso. "Though I meant it the first time when I said I wanted to give myself to you, I am telling you again. I am yours. Forever."

He breathed heavily as he crushed against her with another intense kiss. With one swift movement, he pushed inside of her, and she responded by tilting her hips towards him. They never stopped kissing as they made love, her arms wrapped tightly around his back while he kept his balance with one hand and held her face with the other. Occasionally, one would allow a moan or cry to escape, but, for the most part, the only sound that could be heard was a deep breath when they came up for air.

As Severus felt that he could last no longer, and Hermione looked to be approaching the same point, he pulled back his face and stared into her beaming eyes. "I love you," he gasped as he exploded inside of her.

"I love you," she replied, tears streaming down her face and her entire body trembling with pleasure.

They fell into a deep sleep in the aftermath of their lovemaking, bathed in a soft light that signaled the sealing of the magical contract that bound them together forever in marriage.

All of the Aurors and Order members had returned from the mission to retrieve Zoe relatively unscathed, and they had successfully captured all the renegade Death Eaters from the Malfoy Estate. Satisfied that Draco had nothing to do with the activities of his father and his followers, he was released from custody. He was never heard from again, and it was assumed that he went into self-imposed exile.

Hermione and Severus announced that they would be celebrating their marriage with a public handfasting, a decision greeted with delight by everyone who had been desperate to get Zoe back and see Severus and Hermione happy together.

Zoe was an even happier and more beautiful child with her parents together than she had been when it was just she and Hermione alone. Both of her parents were amazed by the power the child already had, and as often as they were able to, they would work on training her in all forms of magic, though until she was able to understand what they were saying, more often the lessons consisted of demonstrations. Usually it would look like the girl was just looking on with curiosity, but often, sometimes days later, Severus or Hermione would catch her performing one of the spells.

Hermione and Severus hardly ever spoke again of the long troubles they had experienced in the time before they were married except to be grateful for embracing their fate. Their life together would never be easy, but at least they were together, and for Hermione, Severus, and Zoe, that was the best fate of all.

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A/N part deux: There is still a wee bit more to come in the form of an epilogue, so stay tuned for one last update!


	18. Epilogue

A/N: Love and thanks go out to daciangoddess, who so sportingly agreed to beta this spontaneous addition to this tale at the last minute. She deserves a big box of chocolate-covered Severuses for her trouble! Also, once more I want to thank my readers and reviewers, both the new and the old who followed me over here. Your thoughts and comments have been much appreciated.

This is the end of the line for this fic. Some of you have asked for a sequel, but I haven't decided if I want to do that or not. I have a new fic, safely ensconced in the loving arms of my betas, that will hit archives near you soon, so once I have worked all of that out, I will decide whether I want to keep writing in that world or this one. At any rate, it makes me very happy that you have enjoyed this story so much that you would like to see more.

Obligatory: No galleons were made, and no Slytherins were hurt, in the making of this fic. Everything belongs to JKR.

--

"You would think that the father of one of the most powerful witches in England would not be required to wear this ridiculous Muggle costume to these events," Severus grumbled as he fought with the black bowtie around his neck.

For much of Zoe's childhood, it had been a joke around Hogwarts that the peace between two worlds to which the prophecy had referred was the peace between Hermione and Severus. Often when they would fight, their precocious child would stand on a chair or table and beg her parents to be reasonable. It almost always worked, because her entreaties would usually shame the couple into submission.

However, considering all that had happened, no one was quite convinced that keeping Severus and Hermione from killing each other was really the reason Zoe had been brought into the world. In fact, as she grew into her magical potential, the possibilities for her future became even more exciting to those around her. When she married James Potter at age 23, one of the most publicized unions of the post-war period (second only to the marriage of Harry and Ginny Potter), the papers were filled with speculation about the couple. Half of it was certainly destined to be Minister of Magic, or inherit leadership of the Order of the Phoenix, or crush the shadow of dark magic for good.

It thus came as a shock to the entire magical world when it was revealed that Zoe and James were moving into a Muggle neighborhood and that Zoe had been elected to the House of Commons. It was no mystery that Zoe had an unusual interest in Muggle studies, but that was generally written off as her way of keeping in touch with the world of her parents' childhoods. Why do such a ridiculous thing as become a Muggle politician, when the entire Wizarding world would give Zoe Potter anything she desired on a silver platter?

Hermione hadn't batted an eyelash, however, when her daughter became the head of the Labour party and was set to become the youngest female ever to take up the position of Prime Minister. Zoe's skill in keeping order in their household and settling disputes was indication enough of her talent for leadership. Severus would lament in private to his wife about his disappointment that Zoe had not decided to become a Potions mistress, but Hermione would scold him, reminding him that Zoe was smart enough to figure out what she wanted to do on her own, and that it would be wise for Severus to keep his nose out of it.

Far from the eyes of the Muggle press, Zoe worked closely with the aging Minister of Magic, Arthur Weasley, to come up with ways of slowly introducing the magical world to the Muggle one. They didn't want to create a massive panic in Muggle England, but they had decided that the time for magical elitism was over, and they wanted to introduce Muggles to the wonders of the secret world that existed right under their noses.

"If she succeeds, Severus, we will never have to worry about what we wear and when ever again. I would advise you to hold your tongue." Hermione waved her finger at Severus as she scolded him.

"You know that these events make me uncomfortable," he replied sternly as Hermione took over the task of tying his tie.

"Honestly! If I didn't know any better, I would say that you weren't proud of everything your daughter has accomplished!" She threw her hands up in frustration.

"You know that I am, Hermione, but it is hard enough for me to behave properly in magical company. It has been a long time since I had to pretend to be a powerless Muggle like my father." His face contorted into an ugly scowl.

Hermione stepped back and regarded him with a stern expression, her arms folded over her chest. "You will behave yourself this evening, Severus Snape."

Suddenly, Severus began to chuckle. "I believe you inherited more from Minerva than her position, Madam Snape. That face would strike fear in the heart of the most incorrigible Gryffindor."

Hermione's face softened and she laughed along with him. "Perhaps it's because I have to look at that face so often in her painting in my office," she remarked with a touch of sadness.

"You are as formidable a woman as she ever was, Hermione, and I have never doubted that Zoe would be just as impressive. Even if she did marry a Potter." He smirked at her annoyed expression.

"I would watch it, if I were you. Your grandchildren are Potters." She patted his arm in mock comfort.

"As you never tire of reminding me." He reached out to brush a stray lock of graying hair from her face. "You look lovely. Perhaps we should stay in this evening." He grinned mischievously.

"Ah, darling, but I am not as young as I used to be." She pressed his hand against her cheek.

"Nonsense; you are every bit as vivacious and beautiful as you were when we married. I will hear no more on the subject." He bent down to kiss her forehead.

Hermione sighed and closed her eyes at the pleasure of the contact of her husband's lips with her skin. They may not have been as energetic as they once were, but age had done nothing to dampen the fires of passion that had long burned between them. "You are a liar, Severus, but I appreciate it." She looked up at the clock over the fireplace. "It is getting late. We should leave."

"I am proud of Zoe, Hermione. I always have been. Is it not natural for a father to want the world for his only child?" He gently placed Hermione's traveling cloak about her shoulders.

She turned back to face him. "I know, Severus, and I think that she may surprise even you. Tonight, she will publicly introduce Muggles to magic for the first intended time, and, if the prophecy is at all true, she will succeed in integrating the two worlds. Did you ever dream that such a thing was possible?"

Severus chuckled again. "Ah, that damnable prophecy; if it were not for that, she probably would have gone on to be a Potions scholar."

"Or Transfiguration," she amended serenely. "You shouldn't be so down on that damnable prophecy, Severus. After all, if it hadn't been for that, we may never have found our way back to each other."

"Do you ever regret taking me back, Hermione?" He turned his back to her to retrieve his own cloak.

Hermione laughed. "You have waited over forty years to ask me that question? Really, Severus, I thought you more efficient than that. Do you regret that I forgave you and took you back?"

Severus spun around and took Hermione in his arms, pressing an insistent kiss on her lips. "Never," he replied firmly. "Not for an instant. You and Zoe have made me a very happy man."

Hermione returned his kiss with one of her own. "And tonight, we celebrate her. Just be the doting father that you've always been, and I won't shoot too many hexes at you."

"I am not so young either, Hermione. Would you want to hex your husband to an early grave simply because he made a snide remark at some insufferable Muggle minister?" He quirked an eyebrow at his wife and smirked.

"Only if you give me a very good reason." She smiled before walking towards the door. Just as she reached out to open it, she turned and looked at Severus again. "I love you, Severus."

"And I love you. Now, let us go. I certainly do not want to miss the cocktails."

With one last roll of Hermione's eyes, husband and wife left to see their daughter in all her glory.


End file.
